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Value Diversity and Regional Economic Development
Author(s) -
Beugelsdijk Sjoerd,
Klasing Mariko J.,
Milionis Petros
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the scandinavian journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.725
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1467-9442
pISSN - 0347-0520
DOI - 10.1111/sjoe.12253
Subject(s) - diversity (politics) , value (mathematics) , emigration , economics , economic geography , variety (cybernetics) , cultural diversity , geography , political science , statistics , mathematics , archaeology , law
We investigate the link between culture and regional economic development within European countries. Considering a variety of cultural values, we provide evidence that it is the degree of diversity in these values at the regional level that strongly correlates with economic performance, rather than the prevalence of specific values. In particular, we show that greater value diversity is negatively associated with regional economic performance within countries, which also relates to lower institutional quality and poorer public goods provision. These patterns are robust even when diversity is measured on the basis of values expressed by emigrants residing outside their region of origin.