In this paper, we address a specific methodological problem associated with understanding how the institutional and cultural approaches in historical development economics relate to each other. The studies by North, Wallis and Weingast, Acemoglu and Robinson, Lal, Mokyr, McCloskey, De Vries are examined. We reveal the contextual meaning of concepts of institutions and culture in different theories and conduct a comparative study of the examined theories to identify their methodological and ontological foundations. We find that troubles with the understanding of institutions and culture in historical development economics are mainly associated with so-called “agency-structure problem”. In our opinion, the studies by North, Wallis and Weingast, Acemoglu and Robinson, Lal offer a “constraint” interpretation of culture, while the studies by Mokyr, McCloskey and De Vries are based on a model with the free active agent, affecting culture. The paper consists of an introduction, five chapters, and a conclusion. The first chapter is devoted to the empirical facts of historical economic development, the second is devoted to various mechanisms of economic development discussed in the literature, the third is devoted to institutional approaches, the fourth is devoted to cultural approaches and the fifth is devoted to comparative analysis.