TY - JOUR

T1 - Cultural dimensions, collective values and their importance for institutions

AU - Klasing, Mariko J.

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - This paper critically assesses the role of culture in determining the quality of institutions. Employing various measures of cultural differences, I find that only differences related to the degree of individualism in society and the extent to which inequality in the distribution of power is tolerated are strong and statistically significant predictors of the observed differences in institutional quality. This finding is robust to the inclusion of various other determinants of institutional differences across countries discussed in the literature and it holds for a variety of measures of institutional quality. Moreover, the strong link between these two cultural dimensions and the quality of institutions is also confirmed in instrumental variables regressions where a novel instruments for culture based on a weighted average of the cultural attitudes present in neighboring countries is employed. Journal of Comparative Economics 41 (2) (2013) 447-467. Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, Canada KIS 5B6. (C) 2012 Association for Comparative Economic Studies Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

AB - This paper critically assesses the role of culture in determining the quality of institutions. Employing various measures of cultural differences, I find that only differences related to the degree of individualism in society and the extent to which inequality in the distribution of power is tolerated are strong and statistically significant predictors of the observed differences in institutional quality. This finding is robust to the inclusion of various other determinants of institutional differences across countries discussed in the literature and it holds for a variety of measures of institutional quality. Moreover, the strong link between these two cultural dimensions and the quality of institutions is also confirmed in instrumental variables regressions where a novel instruments for culture based on a weighted average of the cultural attitudes present in neighboring countries is employed. Journal of Comparative Economics 41 (2) (2013) 447-467. Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, Canada KIS 5B6. (C) 2012 Association for Comparative Economic Studies Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

KW - Cultural dimensions

KW - Collective values

KW - Individualism

KW - Institutions

KW - Power distance

KW - LONG-RUN GROWTH

KW - ECONOMIC-DEVELOPMENT

KW - EXPLANATION

KW - GOVERNANCE

KW - DIFFUSION

KW - SOCIETIES

KW - COUNTRIES

KW - RELIGION

KW - OTHERS

KW - TRUST

U2 - 10.1016/j.jce.2012.09.003

DO - 10.1016/j.jce.2012.09.003

M3 - Article

VL - 41

SP - 447

EP - 467

JO - Journal of Comparative Economics

JF - Journal of Comparative Economics

SN - 0147-5967

IS - 2

ER -