رشد اقتصادی و تغییر فرهنگی

The paper contributes to the interpretation of annual growth rates based on the effect of the basic growth factors (capital, labour, human capital) and the cultural background as part of the “remaining factors”. It uses a series of variables to express these effects, which are analysed with a principal component analysis and a regression analysis, in the context of a Solow–Romer augmented growth framework. Cultural background variables are divided in two main groups: “Efficiency Orientation” and “Social Orientation” variables. We formulate the hypothesis that within the well-known growth framework “Efficiency Orientation” variables significantly affect economic growth, while “Social Orientation” influences are unpredicted in principle. The results confirm that cultural background positively affects annual growth rates. However, “Social Orientation” plays the main (positive) role. Furthermore, performing a sensitivity analysis on the cultural background, the conclusions confirm that cultural background has a strong interpretive role in annual growth rates. The deterioration of the “Social Orientation” cultural background negatively affects annual GDP growth. The paper points the crucial explanatory power of the “Social Orientation” cultural background for annual growth rates.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the interpretation of gross domestic product (GDP) annual growth rates, with specific reference to the basic growth factors (capital, labour and human capital) and the cultural background as part of the remaining factors. The topic, of course, is quite old. As Acemoglu (2009) remarks, references to the general circumstances of the environment that possibly have an impact on attitude and human conventions can be found in Montesquieu (1989), Machiavelli (1987) and Marshall (1997). The role of religion was stressed by Weber (1958) and more recently by Harrison and Huntington (2000), while Putnam (1993) broadened the meaning of cultural factors and trust as they relate to the concept of social capital. Culture and economics can be seen as two of the more powerful forces shaping human behaviour (Throsby, 2001). The present paper contributes to the literature above mainly regarding the fact that it extends the basic growth function by adding the cultural background of societies and interpreting its effect on annual GDP growth rates, tackling the old topic. Doing so, it contributes towards the quantification of naturally qualitative forces – and thus less manageable and measurable – responsible for the growth process. Furthermore, it tests for possible endogeneity between the variables used, in order to take position on controversial issues in the literature about the direction of the relationships between the variables used. In addition, the paper divides cultural background variables in two main groups –as far as we know, for the first time in the literature: the first covers the variables that represent the “Efficiency Orientation” and the second covers the variables that represent the “Social Orientation” of societies. Lastly, through a sensitivity analysis, it examines eight different cases of change in the structure of the cultural background of societies and the new conditions shaped for annual GDP growth rates. The order of the paper is as follows: Section 2 presents the theoretical work on growth and the cultural background and describes the variables used. Section 3 describes the methodology employed, the empirical model and measurements, while Section 4 presents the empirical work and the discussion of the results. Finally, Section 5 presents the conclusions.

This paper attempts to analyse cultural background as part of the “remaining factors” in the growth process that cooperate with the capital, labour and human capital factors in the framework of a complete growth theory, beyond the Romer-Lucas augmented growth function. The paper divides the cultural background into two main groups of variables: the “Efficiency Orientation” and the “Social Orientation” aspects of the cultural background of societies. To a great degree, this paper succeeds in highlighting the importance of cultural background in interpreting GDP growth rates within the basic Solow–Romer augmented growth function. To achieve this, we allowed these variables to cooperate with the basic growth factors. The interceptive and promoting factors of annual growth rates are defined with considerable clarity to highlight the importance that the improvement of the special conditions of growth would have in the way the growth rates are formed. The empirical results confirm the effect of the basic growth factors on annual GDP growth rates. Regarding the effects between culture and economic growth, an one way relationship accrues, as suspicions for endogeneity problems are not confirmed. The “Social Orientation” cultural background of the societies positively affects annual GDP growth rates. The effects of the “Social Orientation” variables are not captured by any other explanatory variables (capital, labour, human capital), in contrast with the “Efficiency Orientation” variables, whose effect on economic function, due to their nature, may be included in the effect of the rest of the research variables. Thus, the “Social Orientation” cultural background in societies may be a reinforcing element for long-run economic growth, and these “Social Orientation” factors certainly can be promoted by policy interventions. However, the issue is quite complex and has not been thoroughly investigated to date. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis, through examining all possibilities, has established the effects of special circumstances that improve societies as far as promoting and interceptive factors are concerned. This analysis shows that statistically significant structural changes are noted only in the cases where the “Social Orientation” cultural background is reduced (Cases 1–3) and in Case 4, where it remains stable, regardless of what happens to the values capturing the “Efficiency Orientation” cultural background. The reduction of the “Social Orientation” cultural background affects annual GDP growth rates negatively. At the same time, when the “Social Orientation” factors remain stable, the statistically significant structural change of the model concerns the entry of new variables expressing the cultural background (MESOC’), regardless of the changes to the “Efficiency Orientation” factors. One shortcoming of this paper could be that the sample was reduced in the effort to find common data among many countries for the variables used. In addition, using years of schooling to measure human capital ignores within-year investment of time and investment in products and services that increase the quality of a year of education (Cohen and Soto, 2007 and Krueger and Lindahl, 2001). The analysis also ignores the dimension of learning from living in communities (Feinstein, 2006). Future research may analyse the contribution of the basic growth factors and cultural background in addition to other factors representing the remaining factors in the growth process. Such factors may include the transaction characteristics of the societies or the institutions that characterise economies.