Citizens of warmer countries are more competitive and poorer: Culture or chance?

Data from 43 countries were used to examine the negative association between ambient temperature and economic prosperity during the 1965-1994 period from a cross-cultural perspective. Surprisingly, the inhabitants' overall level of cultural competitiveness does not affect economic growth. However, positive temperature-competitiveness and negative competitiveness-wealth relations do account for the stable negative temperature-wealth association. An evolutionary explanation of the temperature-competitiveness-wealth chain of relations is proposed in terms of paternal investment theory. The additional inference from paternal investment theory that cultural masculinity - male/female differences in competitiveness - also mediates between ambient temperature and economic wealth and growth, was not supported. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PsycINFO classification: 4070 JEL classification: F0.