moral development is more important in our society than economic development. how?
Answers
Answer:
Economic backwardness is typically associated with a wide range of institutional, organisational and government failures – and these along many dimensions. In numerous poor or stagnating countries, politicians are ineffective and corrupt, public goods are under-provided and public policies confer rents to privileged élites, law enforcement is inadequate, and moral hazard is widespread inside public and private organisations. There is not just one institutional failure. Typically, the countries or regions that fail in one dimension also fail in many other aspects of collective behaviour.
Answer:
Is there any evidence supporting this idea? Exploiting attitudes revealed by opinion polls in The World Value Surveys (Inglehart et. alii 2000), I seek to capture a distinction between values consistent with "generalised" vs "limited" morality. Conceptually, the distinction concerns the scope of application of norms of good conduct (whether towards everybody or just in a narrow group with which the individual identifies). Generalised morality means that individual values support a generalised application of norms of good conduct in a society of abstract individuals entitled to specific rights.
To measure the diffusion of norms of generalised vs limited-morality at an aggregate level, I rely on two variables. The first is generalised trust towards others (Trust). This variable has been extensively used in many studies, with two alternative interpretations – as belief about the behaviour of others, and as an indicator of moral values and trustworthiness. The two interpretations are not mutually exclusive. Beliefs are likely to be extrapolated to others’ normative conceptions of how one ought to behave. Moreover, experimental evidence supports this additional interpretation of Trust as an indicator of individual values. The second variable seeks to measure the values transmitted from parents to children, exploiting a question that asks about the qualities that are appreciated in children. As an indicator of diffusion of generalised morality, I take the percentage of respondents who appreciate respect and tolerance for others in children (Respect). To reduce the scope of measurement error, I consider the average of these two variables, Trust and Respect.
Explanation:
Economic backwardness is typically associated with a wide range of institutional, organisational and government failures – and these along many dimensions. In numerous poor or stagnating countries, politicians are ineffective and corrupt, public goods are under-provided and public policies confer rents to privileged élites, law enforcement is inadequate, and moral hazard is widespread inside public and private organisations. There is not just one institutional failure. Typically, the countries or regions that fail in one dimension also fail in many other aspects of collective behaviour.
An influential body of research in economic history, political economics and macroeconomics has shown that both economic and institutional backwardness are often a by-product of history – appearing in countries or regions that were ruled centuries ago by despotic governments, or where powerful élites exploited uneducated peasants or slaves (North 1981, Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson 2001). But what is the mechanism through which distant political and economic history shapes the functioning of current institutions?
In a recent working paper (Tabellini 2007), I argue that to answer this question we have to look beyond pure economic incentives, and think about other factors motivating individual behaviour. One of these factors is morality. Conceptions of what is right or wrong, and of how one ought to behave in specific circumstances, exert a strong influence on behavioural aspects that directly affect economic outcomes. The list included voters' demands and expectations, citizens' participation in group activities, the extent of moral hazard inside public organisations, and the willingness of individuals to provide public goods.
Values also evolve slowly over time, as they are largely inherited from previous generations. Thus morality, defined as individual values and convictions about the scope of application of norms of good conduct, is an important channel through which distant political history can influence the functioning of current institutions.