Culture, Institutions, and Economic Growth: Theory, Recent Evidence, and the Role of Communitarian Polities

Theory: Recent work suggests achievement motivation and values embodied in civic culture promote economic growth while postmaterialist values inhibit growth. I provisionally propose that a distinct cluster of values and attitudes, particularly those that emphasize collective organization and societal consensus and concertation, combines with the institutions and practices of communitarian polities to foster economic growth. Hypotheses: After considering the theoretical and methodological sources of diverse findings on culture presented by Granato, Inglehart, and Leblang (GIL), and Jackman and Miller (JM), I hypothesize that communitarian polities, both confucian statist and social corporatist, should have higher economic growth rates than noncommunitarian polities. Method: To reflect on the often divergent conclusions on the growth effects of culture presented by GIL and JM, I consider the different theoretical and empirical models utilized by these authors and related methodological disparities. I then utilize Ordinary Least Squares and robust regression techniques to offer a preliminary analysis of the growth effects of communitarian polities in the context of the basic endogenous growth model. Results: Diverse and divergent findings offered by GIL and JM stem from different theoretical emphases, distinct empirical modeling strategies, and different sample composition and time frames. Statistical analyses suggest that a parsimonious model highlighting the significance of convergence in growth rates, human capital investment, and communitarian polities is empirically more powerful than alternatives. It explains a full 84% of the cross-national variation in 1960-89 growth rates in 25 countries.