Economic Freedom and Religion An Empirical Investigation

There has been much study of the consequences of economic freedom but, outside of the role of political institutions, there has been little study of the determinants of economic freedom. We investigate whether religion affects economic freedom. Our cross-sectional data set includes 137 countries ave...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPublic finance review Vol. 46; no. 2; pp. 249 - 275
Main Authors Hillman, Arye L., Potrafke, Niklas
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.03.2018
Subjects
religiosity
Islam
autocracy
economic freedom
Catholicism
Protestant ethic
democracy
religion
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Summary:There has been much study of the consequences of economic freedom but, outside of the role of political institutions, there has been little study of the determinants of economic freedom. We investigate whether religion affects economic freedom. Our cross-sectional data set includes 137 countries averaged over the period 2001–2010. Simple correlations show that Protestantism is associated with economic freedom, Islam is not, with Catholicism in between. The Protestant ethic requires economic freedom. Our empirical estimates, which include religiosity, political institutions, and other explanatory variables, confirm that Protestantism is most conducive to economic freedom.
ISSN:1091-1421
1552-7530
DOI:10.1177/1091142116665901