How does culture impact economic life? Is culture like a ball and chain that actors must lug around as they pursue their material interests? Or, is culture like a tool-kit from which entrepreneurs can draw resources to aid them in their efforts? Or, is being immersed in a culture like wearing a...

1. Introduction -- 2. Economists should study culture -- 3. But economists often misunderstand the relationship between culture and markets -- 4. Economists ought to be looking at the spirits that animate markets -- 5. This does not mean that economists have to abandon economics.

Culture has been a relatively understudied subject within economics. Economists who have studied it often conceive culture as a form of capital, treating it as a set of tools or a resource that certain groups possess and other groups do not. Austrian economics, in contrast, is a science of human...

The Protestant ethic which, according to Weber, contributed to economic development in the West is only one of a variety of work ethics that can be identified and studied. In the Bahamas, for instance, a definite Junkanoo ethic colors economic life. Junkanoo is a semiannual carnival-like...