The effects of societal culture attributes on regional disparity

Abstract

Purpose

The main goal of this paper is to analyze the effects of societal culture attributes on regional disparity.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses cross‐country data to identify the variables that determine the regional disparity and the gap between the richest and poorest regions in the economy.

Findings

The most interesting result of this study is that there exists a significant role played by societal cultural differences in the explanation of the regional disparity and the gap between rich and poor regions.

Originality/value

As far as we know, this paper makes the first attempt to explain inter‐regional disparity according to culture attributes. We estimate that cultural variables add about 5 percent to the explanation of the variation of the indices of inequality between regions.

Citation

Malul, M., Shoham, A. and Zolotoy, L. (2011), "The effects of societal culture attributes on regional disparity", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 38 No. 7, pp. 649-661. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068291111139267