TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Boppart, Timo
AU  - Falkinger, Josef
AU  - Grossmann, Volker
        TI  - Protestantism and Education: Reading (the Bible) and Other Skills
        PY  - 2010/Dec/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 5402
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp5402
        AB  - During industrialization, Protestants were more literate than Catholics. This paper investigates whether this fact may be led back to the intrinsic motivation of Protestants to read the bible and whether other education motives were involved as well. We employ a historical data set from Switzerland which allows us to differentiate between different cognitive skills: reading, numeracy, essay writing and Swiss history. We develop an estimation strategy to examine whether the impact of religious denomination was particularly large with respect to reading capabilities. We find support for this hypothesis. However, Protestants’ education motives went beyond reading the bible.
        KW  - religious denomination
KW  - reading capability
KW  - education
KW  - cognitive skills
KW  - Protestant reformation
        ER  -