Professor Sir Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, addressing the topic: 'Why social science should integrate culture and how to do it".

The lecture presents some recent innovations in economics, psychology, and economic history that are converging to rehabilitate culture as a legitimate element of analysis. Culture matters, and its evolution is amenable to formal scientific analysis. But these processes need not be benign: there is no equivalent to the invisible hand of the market, guiding a culture toward social optimality. An organisational culture can trap a vital public agency such as a tax administration, into severe dysfunction, stymying national economic development. Such cultural explanations of persistent poverty contrast with the standard political economy account in terms of the rational behaviour of self-serving elites. Although that account has enabled major advances, it struggles to provide a plausible analysis of the most egregious instances of sociopolitical dysfunction. The new formal scientific analysis of culture points to new policy instruments and a new agenda for quantitative research.