Inequality and Growth: The Role of Beliefs and Culture

Abstract

In egalitarian countries people believe that luck rather than hard work determines success in life and expect their government to provide both economic growth and social equity. This leads to a stronger dynamic interplay between government interventions, inequality and growth within such countries. The presented results thus confirm the importance of cultural factors and economic beliefs in shaping the inequality-growth link. More fundamentally, the paper demonstrates that cultural background does not only influence the long-run economic outcomes, but can also affect the joint dynamics of real economic variables within countries over time.culture; inequality; growth