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

Becker, Sascha O. und Wößmann, Ludger (Januar 2007): Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History. Münchener Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Beiträge (VWL) 2007-7

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 19th-century 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.

• Dokumententyp: Paper
• Keywords: Human capital, Protestantism, economic history
• Fakultät: Volkswirtschaft ; Volkswirtschaft > Munich Discussion Papers in Economics ; Volkswirtschaft > Munich Discussion Papers in Economics > Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 300 Sozialwissenschaft, Soziologie ; 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 330 Wirtschaft
• JEL Classification: N33, Z12, I20
• Sprache: Englisch