The Culture Transplant

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A provocative new analysis of immigration's long-term effects on a nation's economy and culture, by the author of 10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less. Over the last two decades, as economists have uncovered the best predictors of national prosperity around the world, one of their repeated findings has been that cultural factors are robust predictors of economic performance. In The Culture Transplant, Garett Jones documents the cultural foundations of cross-country income differences, and draws on recent research showing that immigrants bring economically important cultural attitudes that persist for decades, even centuries, in their new national homes. And since a nation's citizens shape a nation's culture, its government, and its behavioral norms, that means migration will shape the rules of the game for a nation's economy. So it is, Jones demonstrates, that the cultural traits migrants bring to their new homes have enduring effects upon a nation's economic potential, and proximate causes of both poverty and future prosperity.