Once Upon a Time: Some Long-run Determinants of Economic Growth

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Abstract: This talk will present the Historical Values Survey. It contains information on historically prevalent values and norms encouraging cooperation, altruism, work ethic, entrepreneurship, but also discrimination and the challenging of authority. Information on values and norms is elicited from more than 15,000 folk narratives relying on artificial intelligence. The Survey contains 35 variables and covers 156 countries. Folk narratives, such as legends and fairy tales, are transmitted virtually unchanged from generation to generation and thus constitute an excellent source for historically prevalent values and norms. Some historically prevalent values and norms correlate with contemporaneous values and economic outcomes. Including the values and norms into a growth model based on long-term determinants of economic growth improves model fit and documents the relevance of culture for economic development. The dataset can also be used to analyse long-term value change.

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