Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Cultural corridors: An analysis of persistence in impacts on local development — A neo-Weberian perspective on South-East Europe

Tubadji, Annie; Nijkamp, Peter

Authors

Annie Tubadji

Peter Nijkamp



Abstract

Culture matters for economic development. This postulate has been a main conceptual concern for “old” institutional economics (OIE) and has lately also been tested through neoclassically inspired econometric techniques. This conceptual foundation has been confirmed in several quantitative studies on developed countries, in particular cases from the USA, Germany, and Italy. In less developed regions with a wealth of cultural heritage, particularly in South-East Europe, this postulate is still an underexplored issue from the perspective of advanced econometric approaches. Our goal is to examine the impact of the so-called South-East European cultural corridors on welfare — and especially on total employment — at the local or regional level. Accounting for gross value added and sectoral specialization, we examine the effect of such corridors by considering the distance to a cultural corridor: namely, the East Trans-Balkan Road (crossing Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece) as an explanatory factor for regional development, particularly employment. Using the European University Institute (EUI) European Regional Dataset (ERD), as well as the geo-data from the Cultural Corridors of the South-East Europe website, we estimate a regression model using a 2SLS instrumental variable (IV) approach, with a pooled dataset at the NUTS 3 level (Eurostat) from 1980 to 2011. We then triangulate the results by using the distance to the cultural corridor concerned as a treatment effect in a propensity-score-matching and difference-in-differences exploratory analysis. The findings confirm the importance of distance to the cultural corridor under investigation as a strong predictor for local socio-economic development. The results further suggest that the slow evolution of culture over time is likely to lead to the gradual emergence of new geographical cultural centers and a new cultural path-dependence build-up of persistence chains.

Citation

Tubadji, A., & Nijkamp, P. (2018). Cultural corridors: An analysis of persistence in impacts on local development — A neo-Weberian perspective on South-East Europe. Journal of Economic Issues, 52(1), 173-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2018.1430948

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 1, 2018
Online Publication Date Mar 6, 2018
Publication Date Mar 6, 2018
Deposit Date Apr 17, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of Economic Issues
Print ISSN 0021-3624
Electronic ISSN 1946-326X
Publisher Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 52
Issue 1
Pages 173-204
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2018.1430948
Keywords culture, cultural corridor, path-dependence, persistence, place
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/870356
Publisher URL https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00213624.2018.1430948
Additional Information Additional Information : This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Economic Issues on 06 March 2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00213624.2018.1430948

Files





Downloadable Citations