Culture-based development: Empirical evidence for Germany

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive concept for the role of culture in economic growth. Design/methodology/approach - The paper overviews the culture based development (CBD) concept and its precise definition of culture as an encompassing socio-economic factor. The outlined CBD mechanism of impact is expressed in a testable empirical model. Alternative approaches for operationalizing the CBD definition of cultural capital are suggested and a real data application on intra-regional level (for German Kreise) is presented. Findings - The findings illustrate the ability of the CBD model to capture the statistical significance of culture. Originality/value - The paper demonstrates the two innovative elements of the CBD approach to culture: first, measuring culture with a factor variable as a better alternative to the mono-dimensional variables inferred by the state of the art; and second, thus capturing the overall economic meaning of the cultural factor (not just one aspect of it) for local socio-economic development. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited