Protestantism and Education: Reading (the Bible) and Other Skills

Timo Boppart, Josef Falkinger and Volker Grossmann

VfS Annual Conference 2011 (Frankfurt, Main): The Order of the World Economy - Lessons from the Crisis from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: During industrialization, Protestants were more literate than Catholics. This paper investigates whether this fact may be led back to the intrinsic motivation of Protestants to read the bible and whether other education motives were involved as well. We employ a historical data set from Switzerland which allows us to differentiate between different cognitive skills: reading, numeracy, essay writing and Swiss history. We develop an estimation strategy to examine whether the impact of religious denomination was particularly large with respect to reading capabilities. We find support for this hypothesis. However, Protestants' education motives went beyond acquiring reading skills.

Keywords: Cognitive skills; Education; Reading capability; Religious denomination; Protestant reformation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 N33 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/48732/1/VfS_2011_pid_178.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: PROTESTANTISM AND EDUCATION: READING (THE BIBLE) AND OTHER SKILLS (2014)
Working Paper: Protestantism and Education: Reading (the Bible) and other Skills (2011)
Working Paper: Protestantism and Education: Reading (the Bible) and Other Skills (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc11:48732

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