Why Did the Netherlands Develop So Early? The Legacy of the Brethren of the Common Life
研究了14世纪荷兰共同生活弟兄会如何通过促进人力资本积累，推动早期经济发展，对经济史学者有参考价值。
This research establishes a link between the Brethren of the Common Life (BCL), a religious community founded by Geert Groote in Deventer in the late fourteenth century, and the early economic development of the Netherlands. The BCL stimulated human capital accumulation. The historical analyses show that the BCL contributed to the high rates of literacy, to the high level of book production and to city growth in the Netherlands. These findings are supported by a set of OLS regressions and further corroborated by 2SLS estimates that use distance from Deventer as an instrument for the presence of the BCL.