Recent interest in promoting the economic development of the so-called “underdeveloped” areas has stimulated concern with the problem of the effects of social anil cultural institutions on economic growth. A major difficulty in the study of this problem is the scarcity of cases of marked economic development in non-Western cultural milieus, Japan being the major striking exception. Under these circumstances it may be of some interest to examine cases of less striking change on a smaller scale, not only for what can be learned about each case, but also for the assistance they may give in interpreting the more numerous cases of little or no economic growth.