Culture, religion and productivity: Evidence from European regions

This study investigates how a region's labour productivity could be influenced by cultural dimensions and religion - factors that have not received much attention in the previous literature. As another novelty, regional-level data (78 regions of 22 European countries) were analysed. Correlation and regression analysis was performed. The results showed individualism to be positively and masculinity and power distance to be negatively related to labour productivity. When cultural dimensions were included, both general religiosity and the achievement motivation indicator capturing the values of a strong work ethic turned out to be insignificant.