Cultural endowments and economic development: Implications for the Chinese economies

Abstract

In this paper, I first review the pattern model that Yujiro Hayami and I have employed to map the general equilibrium relationships among resource endowments, cultural endowments, technology, and institutions. I then provide a brief review of scholarship in modern development economics of the role of cultural endowments in economic development. In a final section, I turn to the issues raised by the current interest in the role of cultural endowments in the economic development of the East Asian economies. Taking culture into account is analogous to taking resource endowments into account. But it is exceedingly important to avoid either a resource or a cultural determinist explanation.