Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies

Avner Greif

Journal of Political Economy, 1994, vol. 102, issue 5, 912-50

Abstract: This paper integrates game-theoretical and sociological concepts to conduct a comparative historical analysis of the relations between culture and institutions. It indicates the importance of culture, and in particular cultural beliefs, in determining institutions, in institutional path dependence, and in forestalling intersociety successful adoption of institutions. Examination of institutional change in two premodern societies from the Muslim and the Latin worlds yields that their distinct institutional structures resemble those found by social psychologists to differentiate contemporary developing and developed economies. This suggests the historical importance of distinct cultures and the related societal organizations in economic development. Copyright 1994 by University of Chicago Press.

Date: 1994
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (837)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/261959 full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:102:y:1994:i:5:p:912-50

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Political Economy from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().