Before revision: Culture impacts every aspect of society. This paper studies the impact of one of the most important dimensions of culture -- the tension between individualism and collectivism -- on some of the most important aspects of society -- size and wealth. We present a mathematical model of the consequences of individualism and collectivism and derive implications of the model for the size and wealth of the society and for the wealth distribution within the society. Our model provides a useful lens for examining some empirical data; simple regressions suggest that our model explains a significant portion of the data .
After revision: This paper presents a dynamic model to study the impact on the economic outcomes in different societies during the Malthusian Era of individualism (time spent working alone) and collectivism (complementary time spent working with others). The model is driven by opposing forces: a greater degree of collectivism provides a higher safety net for low quality workers but a greater degree of individualism allows high quality workers to leave larger bequests. The model suggests that more individualistic societies display smaller populations, greater per capita income and greater income inequality. Some (limited) historical evidence is consistent with these predictions .