Nine protestants are to be esteemed worth ten catholics. Representing religion, labour and economic performance in pre-Industrial Europe, c.1650 - c.1800.

Lambrecht, Thijs A. (2001): Nine protestants are to be esteemed worth ten catholics. Representing religion, labour and economic performance in pre-Industrial Europe, c.1650 - c.1800. Forthcoming in:

Abstract

Religion was one of the factors that was frequently identified by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century economists as exerting an important influence on the pre-industrial European economies. These writers were especially interested in the economic effects of the Reformation on the economic perfomance of European countries. Nearly all authors argued that Protestantism and economic success were positively correlated. In this paper, the arguments of economic writers are reviewed with reference to the issue of religious holidays. This analysis shows that a high number of religious holidays, on which nearly all forms of manual labour was forbidden, were portrayed as detrimental to the economy.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Religion; Economy; Max Weber; Protestant Ethic; Holidays; Leisure; History of Economic Thought; Mercantilism; Industrious Revolution; Work Hours
• Subjects: N - Economic History > N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy > N33 - Europe: Pre-1913; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z12 - Religion; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N13 - Europe: Pre-1913; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925 > B16 - Quantitative and Mathematical; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925 > B11 - Preclassical (Ancient, Medieval, Mercantilist, Physiocratic); N - Economic History > N4 - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation > N43 - Europe: Pre-1913

References

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