EURINT (Oct 2015)
THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURAL VARIABLES ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. AN ANALYSIS IN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT
Abstract
Economic and social cohesion policy is the most important of EU policies to mitigate inequalities in economic development between member states, which tend to increase in the context of globalization. For this reason it becomes increasingly important to identify the causes of underdevelopment of lagging countries or regions, by analyzing the influence of economic, socio demographic, cultural, institutional and political variables on growth and development. Economic development is an evolutionary process in which people / society is the purpose and means, causes and effects thereof. The sustainable development must be an anthropocentric one, because the human factor has the decisive role in ensuring its success. In nowadays the economic progress of lagging countries or regions dramatically depends on their ability to harness the potential of creativity, skills and abilities of the human factor, by promoting those cultural values that can contribute to the higher growth. The development can be boosted when the population is driven by a strong work ethic, fierce desire to learn from the experiences of other countries, the attachment to the principles of quality and professional excellence, etc., and all this are closely related to the cultural matrix of the country. This article aims to identify the cultural aspects with a major impact on national or regional economic development and to provide an analysis of the implications of cultural differences between EU countries on disparities in development. In order to achieve these objectives will be used data on the situation of development indices (HDI, Legatum Prosperity Index, etc.) and regarding the situation of some cultural variables in European countries, offered by the World Values Survey.
