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Measuring Culture: Global Evidence on Economic Preferences

Abstract: Preferences and beliefs are central to a region's culture and systematically shape important economic and social outcomes. Empirical evidence on preferences is generally scarce and restricted to a limited set of countries and non-representative samples. I will briefly introduce the Global Preference Survey (GPS), a novel, globally representative dataset (N=80,000) (Falk et al., QJE 2018) on time and risk preferences, positive and negative reciprocity, altruism, and trust. Using data from the GPS, I will then discuss ongoing work on the determinants and consequences of economic preferences. In particular, I will show that preferences affect investment and development, that gender differences in preferences vary with the level of development and gender equality, that cultural variation in preferences has very deep historical roots, that mortality is a strong predictor of variation in patience and that so called WEIRD countries aren’t that weird after all.