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A Tale of Minorities: Evidence on Religious Ethics and Entrepreneurship from Swiss Census Data

Author

Listed:
  • Nunziata, Luca

    (University of Padova)

  • Rocco, Lorenzo

    (University of Padova)

Abstract

Does Protestantism favour the market economy more than Catholicism does? We provide a novel quasi-experimental way to answer this question by comparing Protestant and Catholic minorities using Swiss census data from 1970 to 2000. Exploiting the strong adhesion of religious minorities to their confession's ethical principles and the historical determination of the geographical distribution of confessions across Swiss cantons, we find that Protestantism is associated with a significantly higher propensity for entrepreneurship. The estimated difference ranges between 2.3 and 4.4 percentage points. Our findings are robust to a number of robustness checks, including a placebo test.

Suggested Citation

  • Nunziata, Luca & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2014. "A Tale of Minorities: Evidence on Religious Ethics and Entrepreneurship from Swiss Census Data," IZA Discussion Papers 7976, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7976
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Nunziata, Luca & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2014. "The Protestant Ethic and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Religious Minorities from the Former Holy Roman Empire," MPRA Paper 53566, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    entrepreneurship; self-employment; religion; culture; Protestantism; Catholicism; Switzerland;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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