I generally cover the “economics beat” here on SM and one of my favorite nuggets is the complex interplay between econ and culture. There’s a certain non-PC’ness there that I love to indulge although it admittedly leaves many feeling a tad uneasy. Why non-PC? Well, if culture and economics are intertwined…. and since econ outcomes are (generally) measurable…. and it (generally) ain’t too hard to say that richer is better than poorer…. you end up treading dang close to quantifying how one culture might (generally) be better than another.

A purveyor of oppressively unrealistic bourgeois imagery or the fountain of liberation? The numbers are starting to come in…

A mighty sticky ball o’ wax indeed but a subject we’ve nevertheless hit on SM a couple of times (here, here and here, for ex.).

There are a couple of important “pressure escape valves”to keep in mind though. First, cultures are as non-uniform as they are notoriously difficult to define (“model minority” discussions - for ex here - usually wade deep into this territory). Second, and in our case perhaps more importantly, the economic + technology machine’s dynamism necessarily turns around and affects the host culture. This impact is both for better and for worse with a range of attitudes on where it all nets out (shouldn’t be hard to figure out where I land )

While we’re quick to note the emergence of social networking or blog culture on the Internet, the real, important change happens at a comparatively more pedestrian level, and often with far less cutting edge tech. This latter effect is profoundly visible in India (and, of course, China) and is now yielding some fascinating new research looking at the effects of a liberalized television market on rural Indian women…

Writing a few yrs ago on SM, we tossed an offhand reference to the boob tube, in response to an excellent WSJ OpEd by Amit Varma -

The boob tube - for all the disdain hoisted upon it by elite cultural commentators - is also a force for breaking the back of ignorance and the well of low expectations.

Better than 5 Yrs of School?

Interestingly, Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen recently pointed folks at an new research paper that tried to quantify the impact of Television on certain cultural / livelihood measures for Indian women -

This paper explores the effect of the introduction of cable television on gender attitudes in rural India. Using a three-year individual-level panel dataset, we find that the introduction of cable television is associated with improvements in women’s status. We find significant increases in reported autonomy, decreases in the reported acceptability of beating and decreases in reported son preference. We also find increases in female school enrollment and decreases in fertility (primarily via increased birth spacing). The effects are large, equivalent in some cases to about five years of education in the cross section, and move gender attitudes of individuals in rural areas much closer to those in urban areas. We argue that the results are not driven by pre-existing differential trends.

Perhaps the Idiot Box ain’t so dumb afterall? In the past, I’ve readily noted the unappreciated (and even maligned) role of mass media relative to old skool activism as a social driver for the good of Desi’s in the US (Pak Attack and Aishwarya for ex). This, however, is perhaps a far better measure of its affects back in the Desh.