Culture and Institutions
How do countries around the world differ in measures of Trust, Morality, Work-Luck Beliefs, Individualism, Family Ties?
The following tables are taken from the 2015 paper by Alesina, Alberto, and Paola Giuliano, “Culture and Institutions.“, Journal of Economic Literature, 53 (4): 898-944.
Data on individualism come from Hofstede (2001). The remaining variables are authors’ calculations using five waves of the World Value Survey.
To measure trust, respondents are asked, “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful when dealing with others?” Possible answers are either “Most people can be trusted” or “Need to be very careful.”
High levels of trust are typically associated with high social capital and high civil capital.
Markus & Kitayama, 1991: People in different cultures have strikingly different construals of the self, of others, and of the interdependence of the 2. These construals can influence, and in many cases determine, the very nature of individual experience, including cognition, emotion, and motivation. Many Asian cultures have distinct conceptions of individuality that insist on the fundamental relatedness of individuals to each other. The emphasis is on attending to others, fitting in, and harmonious interdependence with them. American culture neither assumes nor values such an overt connectedness among individuals. In contrast, individuals seek to maintain their independence from others by attending to the self and by discovering and expressing their unique inner attributes.
The independent self will tend to interact in the same way with everybody, whereas the interdependent self will interact differently with in-group people than with others with whom relationships are less important or frequent (the out-group).
This difference could help explain why more generalized trust exists in individualistic cultures than in collectivistic cultures, or why individualistic and collectivistic societies have different family structures.
Gorodnichenko & Roland, 2011: Among a variety of cultural dimensions, the individualism-collectivism dimension, based on Hofstede’s (2001) data, is the most important and robustly significant effect of culture on long run growth. Other dimensions that have a significant effect, albeit less robust, are generally strongly correlated with individualism and convey similar information.
Gorodnichenko & Roland, 2014: A more individualist culture leads to more innovation and to higher growth because of the social status rewards associated with innovation in that culture. The relationship between individualism and innovation/growth remains strong even after controlling for institutions and other potentially confounding factors.
Gorodnichenko & Roland, 2015: Despite facing potentially larger collective action problems, countries with an individualistic culture are more likely to end up adopting democracy earlier than countries with a collectivist culture. Strong and robust association between individualistic culture and average polity scores and length of democracy, even after controlling for other determinants of democracy emphasized in the literature. Countries with collectivist culture are also more likely to experience autocratic breakdowns and transitions from autocracy to autocracy.
Family ties is the principal component of three questions: one about how important the family is in one person’s life (on a scale from one to four); and two that ask respondents to agree with one of two statements: “One does not have the duty to respect and love parents who have not earned it” versus “Regardless of what the qualities and faults of one’s parents are, one must always love and respect them”; and “Parents have a life of their own and should not be asked to sacrifice their own well-being for the sake of their children” versus “It is the parents’ duty to do their best for their children even at the expense of their own well-being.”
The Scandinavian countries exhibit the lowest measure of family ties while the measures for African, Latin American, and some Asian countries are among the highest. Southern Europe measures high, but not among the highest. Similarly, the United States appears to have strong family ties, though the magnitude of the score is driven mostly by the question on the importance of the family in a person’s life and not by the questions on links between parents and children. Individualism is particularly high in the United States, Australia, and Northern Europe.
Italy, despite having strong family ties and a relatively low level of trust, appears to score high on this value, which is surprising.
Generalized morality is the principal component of three questions: one taking a measure of trust (defined above), and two asking respondents whether respect and obedience are qualities that children should be encouraged to learn at home.
Banfield, 1958: The concept of morality is valid only within the family, whereas amoral behavior is considered morally acceptable and justified when interacting with people outside the family.
Strong family ties and limited morality are difficult to tease out if one follows this definition. Also, generalized morality and trust are often treated as synonymous.
For work–luck, respondents are asked to choose between two statements: “In the long run, hard work usually brings a better life” or “Hard work does not generally bring success; it is more a matter of luck and connections.”
Northern European countries, together with the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, have high levels of trust, individualism, and generalized morality.
The United States also emphasizes effort (as opposed to luck) as the main driver of economic success, a belief less prevalent in Northern European countries. Since this belief is strongly related to preferences for redistribution, the difference could be due to the vastly differing US and European welfare systems.
See also: Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference (Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser, 2004).
