Weber Revisited: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Nationalism

Arbeitspapier

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.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 8421

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations: Europe: Pre-1913 ; Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: Pre-1913 ; Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance ; Cultural Economics: Religion
• Subject: Max Weber ; protestantism ; nationalism

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Kersting, Felix ; Wohnsiedler, Iris ; Wolf, Nikolaus
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/223493
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET