Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/223493 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 8421
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
We revisit Max Weber’s hypothesis on the role of Protestantism for economic development. We show that nationalism is crucial to both, the interpretation of Weber’s Protestant Ethic and empirical tests thereof. For late nineteenth-century Prussia we reject Weber’s suggestion that Protestantism mattered due to an “ascetic compulsion to save”. Moreover, we find that income levels, savings, and literacy rates differed be-tween Germans and Poles, not between Protestants and Catholics, using pooled OLS and IV regressions. We suggest that this result is due to anti-Polish discrimination.
Subjects: 
Max Weber
protestantism
nationalism
JEL: 
N13
N33
O16
Z12
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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