IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qub/wpaper/1606.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Work Ethic, Social Ethic, No Ethic: Measuring the Economic Values of Modern Christians

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher L. Colvin
  • Matthew McCracken

Abstract

Benito Arruñada finds evidence of a distinct Protestant social ethic in the ISSP’s 1998 Religion II Survey (Economic Journal 2010; 120: 890-918). We replicate Arruñada’s results using his broad definition of Protestantism and our new narrow definition, which includes only those ascetic denominations that Max Weber singled out for possessing a strong capitalist work ethic. We then extend this analysis to the ISSP’s 2008 Religion III Survey, the most recent comparable international questionnaire on religious attitudes and religious change. We find no evidence of a Calvinist work ethic, and suggest that Arruñada’s Protestant social ethic continues into the twenty-first century.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher L. Colvin & Matthew McCracken, 2016. "Work Ethic, Social Ethic, No Ethic: Measuring the Economic Values of Modern Christians," Economics Working Papers 16-06, Queen's Management School, Queen's University Belfast.
    • Handle: RePEc:qub:wpaper:1606
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://ftp.qub.ac.uk/pub/users/repec/qub/wpaper/MS_WPS_ECO_16_06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benito Arruñada, 2010. "Protestants and Catholics: Similar Work Ethic, Different Social Ethic," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(547), pages 890-918, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adrian Chadi & Matthias Krapf, 2017. "The Protestant Fiscal Ethic: Religious Confession And Euro Skepticism In Germany," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1813-1832, October.
    2. Mariano Rojas & Karen Watkins-Fassler, 2022. "Religious Practice and Life Satisfaction: A Domains-of-Life Approach," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 2349-2369, June.
    3. Benito Arruñada & Matthias Krapf, 2019. "Religion and the European Union," International Economic Association Series, in: Jean-Paul Carvalho & Sriya Iyer & Jared Rubin (ed.), Advances in the Economics of Religion, chapter 0, pages 295-308, Palgrave Macmillan.

    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. Becker, Sascha O. & Pfaff, Steven & Rubin, Jared, 2016. "Causes and consequences of the Protestant Reformation," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-25.
    2. Adrian Chadi & Matthias Krapf, 2017. "The Protestant Fiscal Ethic: Religious Confession And Euro Skepticism In Germany," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1813-1832, October.
    3. Axel Dreher & Martin Gassebner & Lars-H. R. Siemers, 2012. "Globalization, Economic Freedom, and Human Rights," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 56(3), pages 516-546, June.
    4. 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.
    5. León, Anja Köbrich & Pfeifer, Christian, 2017. "Religious activity, risk-taking preferences and financial behaviour: Empirical evidence from German survey data," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 99-107.
    6. Engler, Daniel & Groh, Elke D. & Ziegler, Andreas, 2019. "The causal effect of religious and environmental identity on green preferences: A combined priming and stated choice experiment," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203610, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Linz, Susan J. & Luke Chu, Yu-Wei, 2013. "Work ethic in formerly socialist economies," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 185-203.
    8. Benito Arruñada & Matthias Krapf, 2019. "Religion and the European Union," International Economic Association Series, in: Jean-Paul Carvalho & Sriya Iyer & Jared Rubin (ed.), Advances in the Economics of Religion, chapter 0, pages 295-308, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Liang, H. & Marquis, C. & Renneboog, L.D.R. & Li Sun, Sunny, 2014. "Speaking of Corporate Social Responsibility," Other publications TiSEM 92732b13-3daf-45d1-99a1-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Ilan Tojerow, 2016. "In God We Learn? Religions’ Universal Messages, Context-Specific Effects, and Minority Status," Working Papers CEB 2013/233535, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    11. Anja Koebrich Leon, 2013. "Does Cultural Heritage affect Employment decisions – Empirical Evidence for Second Generation Immigrants in Germany," Working Paper Series in Economics 270, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    12. Cornelissen, Thomas & Jirjahn, Uwe, 2012. "Religion and earnings: Is it good to be an atheist with religious parental background?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 905-908.
    13. Yaron Zelekha & Gil Avnimelech & Eyal Sharabi, 2014. "Religious institutions and entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 747-767, April.
    14. Méon, Pierre-Guillaume & Tojerow, Ilan, 2019. "The minority ethic: Rethinking religious denominations, minority status, and educational achievement across the globe," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 196-214.
    15. Davide Rizzotti & Claudia Frisenna, 2017. "Caratteristiche dell?Audit Committee e Gestione del Rischio Bancario: un?analisi empirica del contesto europeo," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2017(2), pages 125-146.
    16. Benito Arruñada, 2012. "Property as an economic concept: reconciling legal and economic conceptions of property rights in a Coasean framework," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 59(2), pages 121-144, July.
    17. Amin, Md Ruhul & Kim, Incheol & Lee, Suin, 2021. "Local religiosity, workplace safety, and firm value," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    18. French, Declan & McKillop, Donal, 2016. "Financial literacy and over-indebtedness in low-income households," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-11.
    19. Skali, Ahmed, 2017. "Moralizing gods and armed conflict," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 184-198.
    20. Adela McMurray & Don Scott, 2013. "Work Values Ethic, GNP Per Capita and Country of Birth Relationships," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(3), pages 655-666, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Work Ethic; Social Ethic; International Social Survey Programme; Replication;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:qub:wpaper:1606. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dequbuk.html .

    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: Mark McGovern (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dequbuk.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.