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The Protestant ethic and entrepreneurship: Evidence from religious minorities in the former Holy Roman Empire

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  • Nunziata, Luca
  • Rocco, Lorenzo

Abstract

We investigate the effect of Protestantism versus Catholicism on the decision to become an entrepreneur in former Holy Roman Empire regions. Our research design exploits religious minorities' strong attachment to religious ethic and the predetermined historical determination of religious minorities' geographical distribution in the 1500s as a result of the “cuius regio eius religio” (whose realm, his religion) rule. We find that today Protestantism increases the probability to be an entrepreneur by around 5 percentage points with respect to Catholicism, a result that survives to a battery of robustness checks. We explicit the assumptions underlying the identification strategy and provide an extensive testing of their validity by making use of several European datasets.

Suggested Citation

  • Nunziata, Luca & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2018. "The Protestant ethic and entrepreneurship: Evidence from religious minorities in the former Holy Roman Empire," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 27-43.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:51:y:2018:i:c:p:27-43
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2017.04.001
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    Cited by:

    1. Luca Nunziata & Lorenzo Rocco, 2024. "The protestant ethic and entrepreneurship: inside the black box," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 1285-1313, April.
    2. Sascha O. BECKER & Francesco CINNIRELLA, 2020. "Prussia Disaggregated: The Demography of its Universe of Localities in 1871," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(3), pages 259-290, September.
    3. Michael Fritsch & Sandra Kublina, 2019. "Persistence and change of regional new business formation in the national league table," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 891-917, July.
    4. Abellán, Miguel, 2023. "Catholics, Protestants and Muslims: Similar work ethics, different social and political ethics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 778-815.
    5. Zhang, Yi & Liu, Chun, 2021. "Religion and unproductive entrepreneurship: The role of risk aversion," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    6. Alemayehu, Binyam Zewde & Steffens, Paul & Gordon, Scott R., 2023. "The formation and role of religious social capital in driving entrepreneurial action," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    7. Tim Heubeck, 2024. "Untangling the Paradoxical Relationship Between Religion and Business: A Systematic Literature Review of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Religiosity Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 195(1), pages 191-214, November.
    8. Astghik Mavisakalyan & Yashar Tarverdi & Clas Weber, 2022. "Heaven can wait: future tense and religiosity," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(3), pages 833-860, July.
    9. Marcus Dejardin & Brigitte Hoogendoorn & Frank Janssen & Cornelius A. Rietveld & Elco Burg, 2024. "Coupling engagement with analytical rigor: advancing research on religion and entrepreneurship using a mechanism-based approach," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 1273-1284, April.
    10. Berlanda, Andrea & Buonanno, Paolo & Puca, Marcello, 2023. "Religion and women: How Waldensians reduced the gender gap," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    11. Feng Zhang & Haina Zhang & Geoffrey G. Bell, 2021. "Corporate religiosity and individual decision on conducting entrepreneurial activity: The contingent effects of institutional environments in China," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 955-978, September.
    12. Michael Wyrwich, 2018. "The effect of being Protestant on entrepreneurial choice," Jena Economics Research Papers 2018-010, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Entrepreneurship; Religion; Culture; Protestantism; Catholicism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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