Social attitudes do matter. A worldwide perspective

A vast amount of literature shows a negative relationship between various categories of social diversity and the quality of institutions and economic growth. The explanation underlying these results is that politicians and bureaucrats may have incentives to favour and receive favours from certain groups, which induce an inefficient allocation of resources and, in turn, hinder economic growth. In addition, the conflict of interests between groups over, for instance, the consumption of a shared public good and the receipt of transfers also negatively affects the quality of institutions and economic performance.

Our research is related to this strand of the literature. We focus on ideological diversity and, more precisely, on the three hottest topics in the current political arena: gender, immigration and environment. The ideological position of the citizenship towards these issues is proxied through questions selected from the World Values Survey. The questions were classified into attitudes, engagement, and confidence. This has allowed us to distinguish several types of individuals according to their responses.  Employing computational methods for social science research, we analyze the relationships between the different groups of individuals and quality of institutions and economic growth. To measure the quality of institutions and economic growth, we have used data from the World Bank and BTI. We also consider that these relationships can be weakened or strengthened by some characteristics of the society, such as political participation, trust, and tolerance, which can be inferred from selected questions from the World Value Survey.

Our analysis permits us to identify the groups that have the most relevant impact on the quality of institutions and economic growth and the shaping elements of society that also influence this impact.