Abstract

KERSTING, Felix; WOHNSIEDLER, Iris  and  WOLF, Nikolaus. Weber revisited: The Protestant ethic and the spirit of nationalism. Rev.econ.inst. [online]. 2021, vol.23, n.45, pp.43-82.  Epub Aug 31, 2022. ISSN 0124-5996.  https://doi.org/10.18601/01245996.v23n45.04.

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 between Germans and Poles, not between Protestants and Catholics, using pooled MCO and VI regressions. We suggest that this result is due to anti-Polish discrimination.

Keywords : Max Weber; Protestant ethic; nationalism; economic development; compulsion to save; income, savings; literacy rates; JEL: A12, A13, C1, D31, E21, I24, 01, Z12, Z13.

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