Marx vs. Weber: does religion affect politics and the economy?

Christoph Basten and Frank Betz

No 1393, Working Paper Series from European Central Bank

Abstract: We investigate the effect of Reformed Protestantism, relative to Catholicism, on preferences for leisure and for redistribution and intervention in the economy. With a Fuzzy Spatial Regression Discontinuity Design, we exploit a historical quasiexperiment in Western Switzerland, where in the 16th century a so far homogeneous region was split and one part assigned to convert to Protestantism. We find that Reformed Protestantism reduces the fraction of citizens voting for more leisure by 13, and that voting for more redistribution and government intervention by respectively 3 and 11 percentage points. These preferences are found to translate into greater income inequality, but we find no robust effect on average income. JEL Classification: Z12, D72, H23, N33

Keywords: culture; Max Weber; political preferences; Protestant work ethic; regression discontinuity design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-hpe and nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20111393

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