Development as a function of culture

Bill Easterly's excellent blog discusses the causal links between development and culture. He highlights research that shows a strong relationship between freedom/individual rights and growth and development. One interesting detail refers to:

"intriging clues about long run cultural values that are contained in linguistic structure within each culture (do you have to say the subject pronouns “I” and “he/she”, as in English, or can you drop them, as in Spanish, along with whether there are different forms of “you” depending on the status of the person you are addressing)."

Malcolm Gladwell explores a similar relationship between cultural values and economic performance. In Outliers his new book, he explains the disaster prone Korean Airlines of the 1980s and the Avianca (Colombian airline) crash in terms of the highly hierarchical cockpit relationships.

In the case of Korea, the language has 8 voices depending on which social class you are addressing. Aviation safety depends heavily on the ability of a co pilot to communicate key guidance to his superior in stressful situations. In hierarchical societies and languages, this is less likely to happen, leading to more likelihood of crashes.

Since the 1980s Korean Air has transformed its management and cockpit culture towards more equality and as a result the safety record has drastically improved.