ABSTRACT
Political scientists and even a few economists have rediscovered culture. This lost continent was a surprising landfall for investigators seeking explanations of economic growth, in particular explanations for national differences in economic growth since World War II. The differences have been large: From 1960 to 1989, for instance, average yearly growth in real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) ranged from 6.6% for South Korea to .75% for Nigeria (Granato, Inglehart, & Leblang, 1996a). During this period U.S. growth averaged 2.1% per year, a mediocre performance in relation to 5% to 7% growth rates for the “Five Dragons”—Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong (Granato, Inglehart, & Leblang, 1996a; Hofstede & Bond, 1988).
