Determinants of Corruption: Government Effectiveness vs. Cultural Norms

Author(s):  
Mudit Kapoor ◽  
Shamika Ravi
Author(s):  
Mudit Kapoor ◽  
Shamika Ravi

Abstract This paper analyzes the parking behavior of United Nations diplomats in New York City and highlights the key limitation of an earlier work which claims cultural norms to be the significant determinant of corruption. We show that after controlling for Government Effectiveness index, which measures the quality of civil services and quality and quantity of public infrastructure in a country, the effect of culture on corruption becomes insignificant. However, the Country Corruption index and the Government Effectiveness index are strongly correlated which makes it difficult to identify the causal determinant of corruption. It is important to keep this correlation in mind before arriving at conclusions from empirical studies, because Country Corruption index could be proxying for other influences such as Government Effectiveness index, and ignoring this might lead us to falsely attribute the observed behavior to cultural or social norms alone. Understanding the relative importance of these potential causes of corruption is fundamental to policy recommendations.


2016 ◽  
pp. 81-106
Author(s):  
E. Borisova ◽  
A. Kulkova

Various components of culture have long been in the focus of economic research. Numerous empirical studies show that cultural norms, as well as religion and language, matter for economic development and have not only statistical but also economic significance. This paper considers various examples of how culture can affect individual values and behavior. It also deals with personal names as a key marker of one’s cultural identity. Overall, the paper contributes to the more profound understanding of a famous notion that "culture matters", and helps clarify the mechanisms through which culture exerts its influence.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-54
Author(s):  
Terry Regier

Cultural norms and trends are often reflected in patterns of language use. This article explores cultural perceptions of Palestine and Palestinians in the English-speaking world, through two analyses of large linguistic datasets. The first analysis seeks to uncover current conceptions of participants in the Israel-Palestine conflict, by identifying words that are distinctively associated with those participants in modern English usage. The second analysis asks what historical-cultural changes led to these current conceptions. A general theme that emerges from these analyses is that a cultural shift appears to have occurred recently in the English-speaking world, marked by greater awareness of Palestinian perspectives on the conflict. Possible causes for such a cultural shift are also explored.


2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Dhaouadi

The thesis of this paper is that human beings are remarkably dis­tinct from other living beings (animals, birds, insects, etc.) and Artificial Jntelligence (Al) machines (computers, robots, etc.) by what we would like to call cultural symbols. The latter refers to such cultural components as language, science, knowledge, reli­gious beliefs, thought, myths, cultural norms and values.


2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Solomon ◽  
Michael van Lent ◽  
Mark Core ◽  
Paul Carpenter ◽  
Milton Rosenberg

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