Material Aspirations, Cultural Change, and the Transition Toward Sustained Growth

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Dioikitopoulos, Evangelos V.; Varvarigos, Dimitrios
• 署名单位: Athens University of Economics & Business; University of Leicester
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• DOI: 10.1111/iere.70004
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: transmission; institutions; stagnation; DYNAMICS

摘要

We highlight the role of economic materialism as a cultural phenomenon of significance in relation to economic transformation and development. By inducing material aspirations, an endogenous cultural change toward more widespread adherence to materialistic values is both a cause and an effect of productivity growth. This cultural-economic complementarity is a powerful mechanism of endogenous productivity growth; it also determines the prevalence of different cultural values vis-& agrave;-vis the prominence of material objectives. From a historical perspective, the model draws attention to a novel mechanism through which cultural change may have contributed to the take-off toward sustained economic growth.