http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/12/06/gregory-clark/the-universal-culture-of-progress/ Big Ideas for a Better World Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:24:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/12/06/gregory-clark/the-universal-culture-of-progress/comment-page-1/#comment-352365 CNEH Conference « Andrew Smith’s Blog Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:05:09 +0000 http://www.cato-unbound.org/?p=356#comment-352365 [...] I feel very ambivalent about the culturalist approach to studying why some countries do better economically than others. Clearly culture matters somewhat (as Mokyr’s research on the economic impact of the Enlightenment shows), but so do other factors, including institutions and, to be frank, exploitative extraction of wealth. The economic historian Greg Clark had this to say about cultural approaches to understanding the origins of economic growth:  “my reaction… is one of intellectual schizophrenia. I simultaneously want to endorse his promotion of culture, and to run screaming from his lethal embrace. As an economic historian who studies economic growth in the long run, I agree completely that the banishment of culture from much of the consideration of wealth and poverty by modern economists has left us with untenable theories of growth… yet attempts to introduce culture into economic discussions so far have been generally either ad hoc, vacuous, blatantly false, or void of testability.” (For the original context of this quote, see here). [...] [...] I feel very ambivalent about the culturalist approach to studying why some countries do better economically than others. Clearly culture matters somewhat (as Mokyr’s research on the economic impact of the Enlightenment shows), but so do other factors, including institutions and, to be frank, exploitative extraction of wealth. The economic historian Greg Clark had this to say about cultural approaches to understanding the origins of economic growth:  “my reaction… is one of intellectual schizophrenia. I simultaneously want to endorse his promotion of culture, and to run screaming from his lethal embrace. As an economic historian who studies economic growth in the long run, I agree completely that the banishment of culture from much of the consideration of wealth and poverty by modern economists has left us with untenable theories of growth… yet attempts to introduce culture into economic discussions so far have been generally either ad hoc, vacuous, blatantly false, or void of testability.” (For the original context of this quote, see here). [...]

]]> http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/12/06/gregory-clark/the-universal-culture-of-progress/comment-page-1/#comment-82390 Will Wilkinson / The Fly Bottle » Blog Archive » Claim of the Day Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:55:09 +0000 http://www.cato-unbound.org/?p=356#comment-82390 [...] Well, in Clark’s contribution to the Cato Unbound discussion of the relative importance of policy, culture, and institutions in economic development, he wrote:   … attempts to introduce culture into economic discussions so far have been generally either ad hoc, vacuous, blatantly false, or void of testability. If culture is a key to growth, the fear is that economists will be reduced to rooting about in the intellectual undergrowth with people we hold in low esteem: qualitative sociologists and cultural anthropologists. Since we have no idea of how cultures develop, or how to change cultures, to admit the primacy of culture may be to admit the defeat of the entire economics project. [...] [...] Well, in Clark’s contribution to the Cato Unbound discussion of the relative importance of policy, culture, and institutions in economic development, he wrote:   … attempts to introduce culture into economic discussions so far have been generally either ad hoc, vacuous, blatantly false, or void of testability. If culture is a key to growth, the fear is that economists will be reduced to rooting about in the intellectual undergrowth with people we hold in low esteem: qualitative sociologists and cultural anthropologists. Since we have no idea of how cultures develop, or how to change cultures, to admit the primacy of culture may be to admit the defeat of the entire economics project. [...]

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