Religion and the Wealth of Nations after 250 Years

Sascha O. Becker

No 2, CEH Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University

Abstract: This chapter explores the intersection of religion and economics on the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776. While Smith is often viewed as a secular figure in economics, his work was deeply influenced by the moral philosophy of his time, which was shaped by Christian thought. I discuss how economists think about the religious themes in Smith’s work in the 21st century and review what we know today about the connection between religion and economic outcomes.

Keywords: Adam Smith; religion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B1 B2 N3 N9 P5 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/CEH/WP202602.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:auu:hpaper:136

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEH Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().