Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/327977 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
ILE Working Paper Series No. 85
Publisher: 
University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics (ILE), Hamburg
Abstract: 
Constitutions as the formal foundation of a country's legal and political system have important economic and political effects. Yet, we still know little about why constitutions set effective constraints on politicians in some societies, while being largely disregarded in others. Here, we ask if national culture matters for constitutional compliance. We study a cross-section of 115 countries, making use of novel indicators of constitutional compliance. We find that societies with a more individualistic population exhibit higher levels of compliance. These results are robust and extend to instrumental variable estimations. They imply a novel transmission channel from cultural traits to long-term economic development: individualistic national culture increases the credibility of constitutional self-commitments. Our analysis also supports the more general idea that the effects of formal institutions depend on the informal institutional environment in which they are embedded. Regarding religion, our results are consistent with past research that attributes the lack of development in the modern Muslim world to deficient institutional quality.
Subjects: 
Constitutional compliance
culture
individualism
Islam
long-term orientation
moral universalism
power distance
rule of law
JEL: 
H11
K10
K42
P48
Z10
Z12
Z18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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