Social Culture and Economic Performance
Open Access
- 1 September 2001
- journal article
- Published by American Economic Association in American Economic Review
- Vol. 91 (4) , 924-937
- https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.91.4.924
Abstract
The connection between obtaining higher paying jobs and undertaking some seemingly irrelevant activity is interpreted as “social culture.” In the context of a society trying to adopt a new technology, I show that by allowing the firms to give preferential treatment to workers based on some “cultural activity,” the society can partially overcome an informational free-riding problem. Therefore, social culture may affect the economic performance by altering the effective production technology of the economy. (JEL P17, Z13)Keywords
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