Abstract
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This research demonstrates a methodology to quantify cultural characteristics, demonstrating household level data can be included in economic models. Open source data provides a wealth of opportunity for policy planners and program administrators. This paper offers examples of how they might be used to include culture. World Bank data from Albania is indexed into a cultural composite that claims to theoretical provide a window into the household expression of the deepest values of a local culture. This paper also offers useful data sources for evidence-based techniques to include cultural or personal characteristics as tools for policymakers and practitioners to increase returns to inputs and better integrate approaches across a diverse regional context. Whether dynamic or static, economic literature acknowledges that culture impacts the heart of society's functioningand this makes analysis of cultural correlations with development both necessary and controversial in policymaking as well as practice. The challenge is greater in the European Union context, which seeks to communicate, if not to unify, policies across widely divergent cultures and traditions. In designing plans that promote economic growth and development, praxis research may tend to weight incentives and structures far more than cultural or personal characteristics. However, this is a missed opportunity as there are several catalytic or obstructive cultural values linked to development, including attributes of a culture's religions, ethical values, entrepreneurial orientations, and networking tendencies such as social trust.
The methodology employs reliable open-access data with subjective questions that fit Fowler’s faith development theory and provided panel data so lag effects can be assessed in future research. The 2003 World Bank Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) data for Albania, Wave 2, was chosen because the subjective questions provided non-religious self-assessments that could be indicative of the theory’s requirements and application as a cultural composit. Albania was chosen because of its unique political and cultural history, which may insulate this analysis from some typical research biases in faith toward certain religions or developed regions. During its long Soviet occupation, the Albanian culture was denuded of most all religious expression through forced communism. After its liberation, if people reverted to any religion, historical Islamic traditions were embraced. This avoids the academic tendency to study Christian or American and advanced European cultures and economies.
Scores from multiple questions focusing on – individual care, institutional care and care for others – were averaged into a cultural composite and divided into three levels of faith development: individual, institutional and independent. This analysis found 17% in Level 1, 64% in Level 2 and 19% in Level 3. Fowler’s study, though not representative, found 3%, 83% and 13% in these levels. The Cr-α of 54.4% is usually considered low however, the literature suggests this may be a reasonable reliability for cultural variables. Level 2 and 3 can then be used as dummy variables, assuming everyone has a Level 1 faith development, which includes Fowler’s Stage 0 Undifferentiated, Stage 1 Projective-Intuitive, and Stage 2 Mythic-Literal. This is the first step for an analysis quantifying culture.
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