Introducing the founding principles of the novel paradigm: Culture Based Development (CBD), Annie Tubadji presents a structured explanation of why people love and hate; why people act in the way that they do; and how this ultimately impacts the entire economy. Drawing on nearly two decades of research, Tubadji offers micro-economic theoretical foundations to provide an understanding of how culture shapes preferences and choices. The book integrates evidence from a variety of fields such as behavioural, regional, urban economics and public choice to robustly support the theory, and offers policy implications in relation to aesthetic education, cultural policies and human development. It further demonstrates how on a personal level cultural bias could importantly vary between individual choices, so that on a macro level this could result in either inefficiencies and collapse of the entire economic system or alternatively allow for human flourishing. Providing innovative tools to measure the dynamic variations of cultural bias and impacts, Culture Based Development is an excellent resource for scholars in cultural and development economics, as well as cultural theory and education. Written in an accessible style, it will also be an interesting read for those with a non-academic background such as policy makers.