The Cultural Foundations of Economic Development: Urban Female Entrepreneurship in Ghana

One of the principal reasons why international aid programmes have often been unsuccessful is that imported solutions are not based upon the indigenous institutions in African countries. InIThe Cultural Foundations of Economic Theory,Emily Chamlee-Wright argues that connections between these institutions and the cultural context which produces and sustains them has been misunderstood by mainstream economic theory which is fundamentally acultural. Instead Chalmlee-Wright argues, the economics of the Austrian School provide a far stronger theoretical framework which can introduce cultural analysis into questions of economic development and other market processes. The author draws on extensive ethnographic field research as well as a challenging and original critique of mainstream neoclassical analysis in a detailed case study of women in Ghana.