@techreport{Tabellini2005Culture,
abstract = {Does culture have a causal effect on economic development? The data on European regions
suggest that it does. Culture is measured by indicators of individual values and beliefs, such
as trust and respect for others, and confidence in individual self-determination. To isolate the
exogenous variation in culture, I rely on two historical variables used as instruments: the
literacy rate at the end of the XIXth century, and the political institutions in place over the
past several centuries. The political and social history of Europe provides a rich source of
variation in these two variables at a regional level. The exogenous component of culture due
to history is strongly correlated with current regional economic development, after controlling
for contemporaneous education, urbanization rates around 1850 and national effects.
Moreover, the data do not reject the over-identifying assumption that the two historical
variables used as instruments only influence regional development through culture. The
indicators of culture used in this paper are also strongly correlated with economic
development and with available measures of institutions in a cross-country setting.},
author = {Guido Tabellini},
copyright = {http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen},
keywords = {O10; P10; F10; N13; 330; culture; economic development; trust; literacy; institutions; Kultur; Regionale Entwicklung; Regionales Wachstum; Bildungsniveau; Sch\"{a}tzung; EU-Staaten},
language = {eng},
number = {1492},
title = {Culture and institutions : economic development in the regions of Europe},
type = {CESifo working papers},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10419/18956},
year = {2005}
}
