UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF CULTURE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF CULTURE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore and analyse how culture affects societies in their efforts to achieve economic development; how efficient political governance can remove or alter cultural obstacles to progress; how development transforms a society from traditional ways of thinking to modern modes of conduct. Furthermore, the aim of this paper is to represent culture in terms which may me capable of bridging the divide that exists between it and economics, that is to propose a way of conceptualising the role of culture in influencing or conditioning economic performance. It also considers recent efforts to think more fundamentally about what constitutes the idea of human development, efforts which place the development process squarely into a cultural milieu. It then discusses the current revival of interest in the relationship between culture and economy from a “history of economic thought-perspective,” with special attention both to the Weberian studies of development and the New Institutional Economics, which endeavour to integrate culture into economics.

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