Today's Sunday Times carries a guest column by David Brooks (original NYT article). Whether you get a parking ticket or not, would depend on a gazillion real life factors. Time, traffic, a fight with your spouse, a lost sock, vehicle malfuntion or whatever-god-wills. It might sound be unfair, even far-fetched to caliberate my cultural standing, and hence predict my economic growth, on the scale of parking tickets. But the numbers don't lie. Infact, the truth rings in, not uncharacteristically I might add, with a few racially charged conclusions.

Only last night, dad and I were talking about how cultural values can affect workplace policies and production strategies. "The Japanese need no incentives. Its a sin not to work," he pointed out. It comes as no surprise that they went from a comprehensively defeated nation to an industrial giant, in time that spanned a little over half of India's independent life. Germany, Israel and Britain are also relevant in a similar context. It would, however, be a spurious claim that their recovery was economically inspired.

 The reason there are such wide variations in ticket rates is that human beings are not merely products of economics. The diplomats paid no cost for parking illegally, thanks to diplomatic immunity. But human beings are also shaped by cultural and moral norms. If you’re Swedish and you have a chance to pull up in front of a fire hydrant, you still don’t do it. You’re Swedish. That’s who you are. 

People need the coherence their culture provides and value it even more than easy parking.