Beyond Work Ethic: Religion, Individual, and Political Preferences
利用瑞士西部历史准实验，发现改革宗新教（相对天主教）使民众更不支持增加休闲、再分配和政府干预，偏好差异转化为更高人均收入和更大收入不平等。
We investigate the effect of Reformed Protestantism, relative to Catholicism, on preferences for leisure, and for redistribution and intervention in the economy. We use a Fuzzy Spatial Regression Discontinuity Design to exploit a historical quasi-experiment in Western Switzerland, where in the sixteenth century a hitherto homogeneous region was split and one part assigned to adopt Protestantism. We find that Reformed Protestantism reduces referenda voting for more leisure by 14, redistribution by 5, and government intervention by 7 percentage points. These preferences translate into higher per capita income as well as greater income inequality.