Beliefs and Economic Growth: Cross-National Evidence Based on the World Values Survey (WVS)

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the relationship between beliefs and economic performance and explains the differences of country performance in global economic growth over the past two decades based on the composite belief index comprising the beliefs on trust, social justice, competition and work-leisure. By influencing personal motivations, beliefs shape society and the institutions and policies of a country in the form of collective ideology. Beliefs demonstrate great differences across countries and change with time, which helps explain the country and intertemporal differences of growth. This paper also found that China’s composite belief index is very high, which helps explain China’s economic growth miracle.

Keywords: belief；cultural；economic growth；World Values Survey (WVS)

JEL Classification: Z10；O47；Z13