Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP14963
Authors: Felix Kersting; Iris Wohnsiedler; Nikolaus Wolf
Abstract: We revisit Max Weber's hypothesis on the role of Protestantism for economic development. We show that nationalism is crucial to both, the interpretation of Weber's Protestant Ethic and empirical tests thereof. For late nineteenth-century Prussia we reject Weber's suggestion that Protestantism mattered due to an "ascetic compulsion to save". Moreover, we find that income levels, savings, and literacy rates differed between Germans and Poles, not between Protestants and Catholics, using pooled OLS and IV regressions. We suggest that this result is due to anti-Polish discrimination.
Keywords: Max Weber; Protestantism; Nationalism
JEL Codes: N13; N33; O16; Z12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Protestantism (Z12) | ethnic differences (J15) |
| Protestantism (Z12) | savings behavior (D14) |
| Protestantism (Z12) | literacy rates (I24) |
| Ethnic differences (J15) | savings behavior (D14) |
| Ethnic differences (J15) | literacy rates (I24) |
| Ethnic differences (J15) | income levels (J31) |