Protestants and Catholics: Similar work ethic, different social ethic

Benito Arruñada

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract: This article develops two hypotheses about economically-relevant values of Christian believers, according to which Protestants should work more and more effectively, as in the “work ethic” argument of Max Weber, or display a stronger “social ethic” that would lead them to monitor each other’s conduct, support political and legal institutions and hold more homogeneous values. Tests using current survey data confirm substantial partial correlations and possible different “effects” in mutual social control, institutional performance and homogeneity of values but no difference in work ethics. Protestantism therefore seems conducive to capitalist economic development, not by the direct psychological route of the Weberian work ethic but rather by promoting an alternative social ethic that facilitates impersonal trade.

Keywords: Religion; values; Weber; institutions; enforcement. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 E0 N4 O39 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-03, Revised 2010-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-evo and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (83)

Downloads: (external link)
https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/743.pdf Whole Paper (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Protestants and Catholics: Similar Work Ethic, Different Social Ethic (2015)
Journal Article: Protestants and Catholics: Similar Work Ethic, Different Social Ethic (2010)
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:upf:upfgen:743

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).