This research argues that variations in the interplay between cultural assimilation and cultural diffusion have played a significant role in giving rise to differential patterns of economic development across the globe. Societies that were geographically less vulnerable to cultural diffusion,...

This article reflects the renewed interest of economics and the social science discipline in value systems and religion. The World Values Survey provided a data framework of global value change, whose quantitative results led Barro (2004) to analyze the connections between some dimensions of...

This paper updates and extends my earlier work, published in the Journal of Economic Issues, on how the middle class fares throughout the world. My 2007 paper provided a definition of the middle class as well as estimates of the size of the middle class in several nations. It argued that the...