Cultural economics
Cultural economics is the branch of economics that studies the relation of culture to economic outcomes. Here, 'culture' is defined by shared beliefs and preferences of respective groups. Programmatic issues include whether and how much culture matters as to economic outcomes and what its relation is to institutions.[1] As a growing field in behavioral economics, the role of culture in economic behavior is increasingly being demonstrated to cause significant differentials in decision-making and the management and valuation of assets.
For an alternate standard usage of 'cultural economics', see Economics of the arts and literature.Overview[edit]
Applications include the study of religion,[2] social capital,[3] social norms,[4] social identity,[5] fertility,[6] beliefs in redistributive justice,[7] ideology,[8] hatred,[9] terrorism,[10] trust,[11] family ties,[12] long-term orientation,[13][14] and the culture of economics.[15][16] A general analytical theme is how ideas and behaviors are spread among individuals through the formation of social capital,[17] social networks[18] and processes such as social learning, as in the theory of social evolution[19] and information cascades.[20] Methods include case studies and theoretical and empirical modeling of cultural transmission within and across social groups.[21] In 2013, Said E. Dawlabani added the value systems approach to the cultural emergence aspect of macroeconomics.[22]
Cultural finance[edit]
Cultural finance a growing field in behavioral economics that studies the impact of cultural differences on individual financial decisions and on financial markets. Probably the first paper in this area was "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development" by Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza, and Luigi Zingales.[35] The paper studied how well-known differences in social capital affected the use and availability of financial contracts across different parts of Italy. In areas of the country with high levels of social capital, households invest less in cash and more in stock, use more checks, have higher access to institutional credit, and make less use of informal credit. Few years later, the same authors published another paper "Trusting the Stock Market" where they show that a general lack of trust can limit stock market participation. Since trust has a strong cultural component, these two papers represent important contribution in cultural economics.
In 2007, Thorsten Hens and Mei Wang pointed out that indeed many areas of finance are influenced by cultural differences.[36] The role of culture in financial behavior is also increasingly being demonstrated to have highly significant effects on the management and valuation of assets. Using the dimensions of culture identified by Shalom Schwartz, it has been proved that corporate dividend payments are determined largely by the dimensions of Mastery and Conservatism.[37] Specifically, higher degrees of conservatism are associated with greater volumes and values of dividend payments, and higher degrees of mastery are associated with the total opposite. The effect of culture on dividend payouts has been further shown to be closely related to cultural differences in risk and time preferences.[38]
A different study assessed the role of culture on earnings management using Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions and the index of earnings management developed by Christian Leutz; which includes the use of accrual alteration to reduce volatility in reported earnings, the use of accrual alteration to reduce volatility in reported operating cash flows, use of accounting discretion to mitigate the reporting of small losses, and the use of accounting discretion when reporting operating earnings. It was found that Hofstede's dimension of Individualism was negatively correlated with earnings management, and that uncertainty avoidance was positively correlated.[39] Behavioral economist Michael Taillard demonstrated that investment behaviors are caused primarily by behavioral factors, largely attributed to the influence of culture on the psychological frame of the investors in different nations, rather than rational ones by comparing the cultural dimensions used both by Geert Hofstede and Robert House, identifying strong and specific influences in risk aversion behavior resulting from the overlapping cultural dimensions between them that remained constant over a 20-year period.[40]
In regards to investing, it has been confirmed by multiple studies that greater differences between the cultures of various nations reduces the amount of investment between those countries. It was proven that both cultural differences between nations as well as the amount of unfamiliarity investors have with a culture not their own greatly reduces their willingness to invest in those nations, and that these factors have a negative impact with future returns, resulting in a cost premium on the degree of foreignness of an investment.[41][42] Despite this, equity markets continue to integrate as indicated by equity price comovements, of which the two largest contributing factors are the ratio of trade between nations and the ratio of GDP resulting from foreign direct investment.[43] Even these factors are the result of behavioral sources, however.[44] The UN World Investment Report (2013)[45] shows that regional integration is occurring at a more rapid rate than distant foreign relations, confirming an earlier study concluding that nations closer to each other tend to be more integrated.[46] Since increased cultural distance reduces the amount of foreign direct investment, this results in an accelerating curvilinear correlation between financial behavior and cultural distance.[47][48][49]
Culture also influences which factors are useful when predicting stock valuations. In Jordan, it was found that 84% of variability in stock returns were accounted for by using money supply, interest rate term structure, industry productivity growth, and risk premium; but were not influenced at all by inflation rates or dividend yield.[50] In Nigeria, both real GDP and Consumer Price Index were both useful predictive factors, but foreign exchange rate was not. In Zimbabwe, only money supply and oil prices were found to be useful predictors of stock market valuations.[51] India identified exchange rate, wholesale price index, gold prices, and market index as being useful factors.[52] A comprehensive global study out of Romania attempted to identify if any factors of stock market valuation were culturally universal, identifying interest rates, inflation, and industrial production, but found that exchange rate, currency exchange volume, and trade were all unique to Romania.[53]
Geographical origins of cultural traits[edit]
Geographical characteristics were linked recently to the emergence of cultural traits and differences in the intensity of these cultural traits across regions, countries and ethnic group. Geographical characteristics that were favorable for the usage of the plow in agriculture contributed to a gender gap in productivity, and to the emergence of gender roles in society.[54][55][56] Agricultural characteristics that led to a higher return to agricultural investment generated a process of selection, adaptation, and learning, that increase the level of long-term orientation in society.[13]