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Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Sascha Becker
  • Ludger Wößmann

    ()

Abstract

Max Weber attributed the higher economic prosperity of Protestant regions to a Protestant work ethic. We provide an alternative theory, where Protestant economies prospered because instruction in reading the Bible generated the human capital crucial to economic prosperity. County-level data from late 19thcentury Prussia reveal that Protestantism was indeed associated not only with higher economic prosperity, but also with better education. We find that Protestants’ higher literacy can account for the whole gap in economic prosperity. Results hold when we exploit the initial concentric dispersion of the Reformation to use distance to Wittenberg as an instrument for Protestantism.

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File URL: http://www.cesifo-group.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp1987.pdf
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Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number 1987.

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Date of creation: 2007
Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1987
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Keywords: human capital; protestantism; economic history;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
  • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
  • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

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  17. Botticini, Maristella & Eckstein, Zvi, 2005. "Jewish Occupational Selection: Education, Restrictions, or Minorities?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(04), pages 922-948, December.
  18. Botticini, Maristella & Eckstein, Zvi, 2006. "From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History," CEPR Discussion Papers 5571, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Le rôle du capital humain dans la révolution industrielle
    by ? in D'un champ l'autre on 2014-06-21 18:43:00
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