Does national culture change as countries develop? Evidence from generational cleavages

Abstract

Development scholars have identified several Hofstede (1980, 2001) cultural dimensions as critically important determinants of long-run economic development across countries. Does economic progress, in turn, shape culture in a predictable direction? This paper investigates whether economic change since 1970 has induced shifts in five of the Hofstede value orientations in a sample of up to 72 countries. To achieve identification, we employ a unique data set on country-level cleavages in the values of two non-overlapping age cohorts approximately one generation (30 years) apart, on average. We find evidence that faster-growing countries during the period of coming of age and personality development of the younger cohort witnessed the rise of more individualistic and politically egalitarian generations, suggesting the existence of a self-perpetuating cycle between certain “good-for-development” cultural attitudes and economic development.

Is tax morale culturally driven?

“…Originally, these dimensions have been constructed to analyse employees work-related values within a multinational corporation (Hofstede 1981). Later on, Hofstede's taxonomy of culture has been increasingly employed in cross-cultural and business studies (Beugelsdijk and Welzel 2018;Kaasa 2015), economics and institutional studies (Davis and Williamson, 2019;Tarabar 2019).…”

“…For instance, in detecting the impact of individual's altruistic values Guiso et al (2004) show that values driving individuals to become blood donors are determined by the regional origins of the respondents. Similarly, recent work on inter-generational change in values has also shed new light into the slow process of change in time that can affect cultural values (Beugelsdijk, et al 2015;Tarabar, 2019).…”

Intercultural Differences in Road Safety Performance and Support for Road Safety Policy Measures

“…This is strongly linked to economic and human development and the associated evolution from a priority on existential security toward expressive freedom [14]. In general, greater economic prosperity and equality eventually lead to more tolerant, egalitarian, autonomous, and trusting societies [15]. Younger generations across the world have become more individualistic and more joyous [16].…”

Introduction to the special issue on institutions and culture in economic contexts

“…In this regard, in recent years, the Journal of Institutional Economics has provided a voice to pioneer empirical and conceptual works on the relationship between culture and different institutional and socio-economic aspects both in high-income and developing economies (e.g. Andriani and Sabatini, 2015;Berggren et al, 2019;Gerxhani and Van Breemen, 2019;Kyriacou and López Velásquez, 2015;Spranz et al, 2012;Tarabar, 2019). However, in many circumstances, at present, culture and institutions are keywords belonging to two only partially converging research streams.…”

“…Originally, Hofstede constructed these dimensions to map employees' work-related values within a multinational corporation, with focus on IBM (Hofstede, 1980). Afterwards, this specific taxonomy has been employed in cross-cultural and business studies (Beugelsdijk and Welzel, 2018), as well as in economics and institutional studies (Cline and Williamson, 2017;Davis and Williamson, 2016;Tarabar, 2019).…”