Religious Orders and Growth through Cultural Change in Pre-Industrial England

TY - UNPB

T1 - Religious Orders and Growth through Cultural Change in Pre-Industrial England

AU - Andersen, Thomas Barnebeck

AU - Bentzen, Jeanet

AU - Dalgaard, Carl-Johan

AU - Sharp, Paul

N1 - JEL Classification: N13, O11, Z12

PY - 2011

Y1 - 2011

N2 - We advance the hypothesis that cultural values such as high work ethic and thrift, “the Protestant ethic” according to Max Weber, may have been diffused long before the Reformation, thereby importantly affecting the pre-industrial growth record. The source of pre-Reformation Protestant ethic, according to the proposed theory, was the Catholic Order of Cistercians. Using county-level data for England we find empirically that the frequency of Cistercian monasteries influenced county-level comparative development until 1801; that is, long after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The pre-industrial development of England may thus have been propelled by a process of growth through cultural change.

AB - We advance the hypothesis that cultural values such as high work ethic and thrift, “the Protestant ethic” according to Max Weber, may have been diffused long before the Reformation, thereby importantly affecting the pre-industrial growth record. The source of pre-Reformation Protestant ethic, according to the proposed theory, was the Catholic Order of Cistercians. Using county-level data for England we find empirically that the frequency of Cistercian monasteries influenced county-level comparative development until 1801; that is, long after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The pre-industrial development of England may thus have been propelled by a process of growth through cultural change.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Protestant ethic

KW - Malthusian population dynamics

KW - economic development

M3 - Working paper

BT - Religious Orders and Growth through Cultural Change in Pre-Industrial England

PB - Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen

ER -