Three essays on cultural economic

The present work consists in three papers that investigates some aspects of the complex relationship about culture and economics. In the first chapter we describe a theoretical model that provides an explanation about the mechanisms that creates the culture and explains the reason why in different places there are different values and beliefs. We assumed that individuals are more inclined to be with other people which are more similar to them in terms of behavior. Hence culture is the result of the combination of two opposite forces: one is external and it is represented by shocks, while the other is internal and it is driven by the human desire of conformity to the social norm. The equilibrium we find is stable and path dependent. The second chapter examines the relationship between cultural dispersion and economic output. We defined the cultural dispersion as a measure of the total deviation of the population from the social norm. We obtained this measure with respect to six cultural components. Empirical analysis on a sample of global countries showed that cultural heterogeneity has a negative impact on output. The third and final chapter uses a neoclassical growth model to assess the relationship between the component of gender equality that comes from culture and economic growth on a European data set. In order to deal to the reverse causality issue, we used the variable measuring the importance of religion as an instrument for the gender equality. We estimated both the base model and the spatial model. Both versions confirmed the positive effect of equality and growth. Moreover, the spatial model highlighted the existence of a positive spatial spillover effect.