Via Tyler Cowen, a paper by Davide Cantoni casts some doubt on the efficacy of the Protestant Ethic:
Many theories, most famously Max Weber’s essay on the ‘Protestant ethic,’ have hypothesized that Protestantism should have favored economic development. With their considerable religious heterogeneity and stability of denominational affiliations until the 19th century, the German Lands of the Holy Roman Empire present an ideal testing ground for this hypothesis. Using population figures in a dataset comprising 276 cities in the years 1300-1900, I find no effects of Protestantism on economic growth. The finding is robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls, and does not appear to depend on data selection or small sample size. In addition, Protestantism has no effect when interacted with other likely determinants of economic development. I also analyze the endogeneity of religious choice; instrumental variables estimates of the effects of Protestantism are similar to the OLS results.
Does anybody else appreciate the irony of the above quoted paragraph? Remember, this is Weber that we’re talking about.
December 2nd, 2009 | 9:57 am
I always associated the Protestant work ethic more with Calvinism than Lutheranism, and if I remember correctly, the Germans would have been primarily Lutheran.
December 2nd, 2009 | 9:23 pm
dont know about irony *cough* but funny thing, weber explicitly distinguished between lutherism as practiced in the old world and american calvinism within the context of the new when putting together his “protestant ethic” essays.
December 2nd, 2009 | 9:32 pm
Good point, I partially retract my chortling. It’s worth noting, however, that while Weber certainly pointed to Calvinism (and further in a modified form to Baptism) as the fulfillment of the Protestant Ethic, he also thought it was present in Lutheranism.
December 3rd, 2009 | 12:43 am
[...] Will Wilson and MR, here’s an interesting paper on the Protestant work ethic: Many theories, most [...]
December 3rd, 2009 | 1:09 pm
[...] Will Wilson at Postmodern Conservative: Does anybody else appreciate the irony of the above quoted paragraph? Remember, this is Weber that we’re talking about. [...]
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