Beyond Work Ethic: Religion, Individual, and Political Preferences

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Basten, Christoph; Betz, Frank
• 署名单位: Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.5.3.67
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 67-91
• 关键词: regression discontinuity designs; culture; state

摘要

We investigate the effect of Reformed Protestantism, relative to Catholicism, on preferences for leisure, and for redistribution and intervention in the economy. We use a Fuzzy Spatial Regression Discontinuity Design to exploit a historical quasi-experiment in Western Switzerland, where in the sixteenth century a hitherto homogeneous region was split and one part assigned to adopt Protestantism. We find that Reformed Protestantism reduces referenda voting for more leisure by 14, redistribution by 5, and government intervention by 7 percentage points. These preferences translate into higher per capita income as well as greater income inequality.