Traditionally, economists have considered culture, customs, and religion as
a. very important influences on the choices consumers make.
b. relatively unimportant factors in explaining the choices consumers make.
c. important influences in explaining consumer choices in command economies but less important in market economies.
d. subject to normative economic analysis rather than positive economic analysis.

The traditional economy is a system based on customs, beliefs and routine practices of a community or region. Where it is tradition, customs, skills and acquired arts that guide economic decisions.

The traditional economy represents a type of subsistence economy whose productive system works according to inheritance and tradition.

The income generating activities in a Traditional Economy are: agriculture, extensive breeding, fishing, hunting, gathering, crafts. A traditional economy generally uses barter instead of money as a means of payment and exchange.

Although it seems a thing of the past, the traditional economy still operates in many regions of the Middle East, Asia, Africa and America. Two thirds of the population of Haiti live from the traditional economy, although specialists do not point to this productive system as the reason for their poverty.

Some 500 Amish and Mennonite communities spread between Canada and the United States; some Navajo communities in the southwestern United States and many Alaskan and Arctic peoples subsist on the traditional economy; especially hunting, fishing and gathering. They have become self-sufficient, because they depend very little on the provisions of the large populated centers.