I would normally not have read Values at the Core by Grandjean and Tan has it not garnered a passive-aggressive review on the Business Times. There is a class of books that wind up really triggering Western Liberal woke types when empirical research is used to compare cultures against each other. The big must-read in this category is The Triple Package by Tiger Mum Amy Chua and her assortatively mated consort Jed Rubenfeld. Both books are well-researched, which is why authors expect to roundly condemned by the Woke.
Values at the Core's central thesis is that even the most effective economic policies will be limited in effectiveness if the population do not subscribe to the right values. These values being Hard Work, Thrift, Social Trust and propensity for Risk-Taking. The most offensive section of the book proposes that cultures with Confucian values and Protestant work-ethic benefit the most...