IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-09-00171.html

Religion and economy: a comment

Author

Listed:
  • Benno Torgler

    (Queensland University of Technology, CESifo, CREMA, NCER)

  • Christoph Schaltegger

    (University of St. Gallen, CREMA, ECONOMIESUISSE)

Abstract

McCleary and Barro (2006) analyse whether Max Weber was right in emphasizing the religious impact on work ethic. They find a positive correlation between belief in hell and work ethic (p=0.098). They conclude that “Weber may have been right in emphasizing the religion link with work ethic” (p. 71). However, they fail to explore link to Max Weber's work on Protestant ethic as they don't explore for denomination differences. Weber's hypothesis would suggest that we would mainly observe an effect for Protestantism. Using a similar data set we provide empirical evidence that indicates that the impact of religion on work ethic is affected by the level of Protestantism within a society. Thus, compared to McCleary and Barro's finding such a result is very much in line with Max Weber's link between religion and work ethic.

Suggested Citation

  • Benno Torgler & Christoph Schaltegger, 2009. "Religion and economy: a comment," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(3), pages 2227-2230.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-09-00171
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2009/Volume29/EB-09-V29-I3-P68.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sascha O. Becker & Ludger Woessmann, 2009. "Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 531-596.
    2. Rachel M. McCleary & Robert J. Barro, 2006. "Religion and Economy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 49-72, Spring.
    3. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arye L. Hillman & Niklas Potrafke, 2018. "Economic Freedom and Religion," Public Finance Review, , vol. 46(2), pages 249-275, March.
    2. Djankov, Simeon & Nikolova, Elena, 2018. "Communism as the unhappy coming," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 708-721.
    3. Filipe R. Campante & David H. Yanagizawa-Drott, 2013. "Does Religion Affect Economic Growth and Happiness? Evidence from Ramadan," NBER Working Papers 19768, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Yang Ni & Jeffrey Pittman & Samir Saadi, 2012. "Does Religion Matter to Equity Pricing?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 111(4), pages 491-518, December.
    5. Jean-François Carpantier & Anastasia Litina, 2014. "Dissecting the Act of God - An Exploration of the Effect of Religion on Economic Activity," DEM Discussion Paper Series 14-09, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    6. Deng, Jiapin & Liu, Qiao & Yan, Se, 2025. "Fostering social capital: The long-term effects of Protestant activities on corporate tax avoidance in modern China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    7. James B. Ang, 2015. "Agricultural Legacy, Individualistic Culture, and Techology Adoption," Economic Growth Centre Working Paper Series 1506, Nanyang Technological University, School of Social Sciences, Economic Growth Centre.
    8. Buchen, Clemens, 2010. "Emerging economic systems in Central and Eastern Europe – a qualitative and quantitative assessment," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 37141.
    9. Quamrul Ashraf & Oded Galor, 2011. "Cultural Diversity, Geographical Isolation, and the Origin of the Wealth of Nations," Center for Development Economics 2011-10, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    10. Stelios Michalopoulos & Alireza Naghavi & Giovanni Prarolo, 2010. "Trade and Geography in the Economic Origins of Islam: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 2010.75, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    11. Luca Nunziata & Lorenzo Rocco, 2024. "The protestant ethic and entrepreneurship: inside the black box," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 1285-1313, April.
    12. Mathieu Couttenier & Sophie Hatte & Lucile Laugerette & Tommaso Sonno, 2025. "Dear Brothers and Sisters: Pope's Speeches and the Dynamics of Conflict in Africa," Working Papers hal-05029770, HAL.
    13. Baele, L. & Farooq, M. & Ongena, S., 2012. "Of Religion and Redemption : Evidence from Default on Islamic Loans (Replaces CentER DP 2010-136)," Discussion Paper 2012-014, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    14. Maloney,William F. & Zambrano,Andrés, 2021. "Learning to Learn : Experimentation, Entrepreneurial Capital, and Development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9890, The World Bank.
    15. Eberhard Feess & Helge Mueller & Sabrina G. Ruhnau, 2014. "The Impact of Religion and the Degree of Religiosity on Work Ethic: A Multilevel Analysis," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(4), pages 506-534, November.
    16. Di Liberto, Adriana & Sideri, Marco, 2015. "Past dominations, current institutions and the Italian regional economic performance," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 12-41.
    17. Djankov, Simeon & Jolevski, Filip, 2020. "The post-communist transition at 30," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118920, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. van Hoorn, André & Maseland, Robbert, 2013. "Does a Protestant work ethic exist? Evidence from the well-being effect of unemployment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 1-12.
    19. Cline, Brandon N. & Williamson, Claudia R. & Xiong, Haoyang, 2021. "Culture and the regulation of insider trading across countries," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    20. Davis, Lewis S. & Williamson, Claudia R., 2016. "Culture and the regulation of entry," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 1055-1083.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-09-00171. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.