期刊名称：Euro Area Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Statistics
印刷版ISSN：1830-3420
电子版ISSN：1830-3439
出版年度：2011
出版社：European Central Bank
摘要：We investigate the effect of Reformed Protestantism, relative to Catholicism, on preferences for leisure and for redistribution and intervention in the economy. With a Fuzzy Spatial Regression Discontinuity Design, we exploit a historical quasiexperiment in Western Switzerland, where in the 16th century a so far homogeneous region was split and one part assigned to convert to Protestantism. We find that Reformed Protestantism reduces the fraction of citizens voting for more leisure by 13, and that voting for more redistribution and government intervention by respectively 3 and 11 percentage points. These preferences are found to translate into greater income inequality, but we find no robust effect on average income.
关键词：Max Weber; Culture; Protestant Work Ethic; Political Preferences; Regression;Discontinuity Design
