Abstract
In this paper I present a statistical test of the hypothesis that Protestantism is positively associated with economic growth. I also investigate whether religion can help to explain why ex-Spanish and French colonies have significantly lower economic growth than ex-British colonies. I find that the growth rate of Protestantism is signficantly and positively correlated with real GDP growth, and that the level of Protestantism is significantly related to real per-capita GDP levels. While the results imply that Protestantism plays an important level in development, its inclusion in the cross-country regressions do not close the gap between the ex-colonial states.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 47-62 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Kyklos |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1997 |