Domestic Material Consumption from Cultural Perspective in European Countries

Abstract

The reduction of domestic material consumption (DMC) nowadays is an important prerequisite for sustainability of economic development on one side and the protection of the environment on the other side. This paper contributes to cross-country direction of analysis by studying the influence of cultural differences on DMC. This paper presents multivariate regression analysis of cultural factors influencing domestic material consumption. We find that uncertainty avoidance index and index indulgence versus restraint are statistically significantly related to domestic material consumption. We control for GDP per capita, test for multicollinearity and work with outliers. Our results are in line with existing research on cultural differences in consumer behavior.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p1791