"Blessed are the poor": The Weberian spirit of capitalism under experimental scrutiny

Fazio, Andrea; Reggiani, Tommaso; Santori, Paolo Working Paper "Blessed are the poor": The Weberian spirit of capitalism under experimental scrutiny MUNI ECON Working Paper, No. 2024-06 Provided in Cooperation with: Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration Suggested Citation: Fazio, Andrea; Reggiani, Tommaso; Santori, Paolo (2024) : "Blessed are the poor": The Weberian spirit of capitalism under experimental scrutiny, MUNI ECON Working Paper, No. 2024-06, Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Brno, https://doi.org/10.5817/WP_MUNI_ECON_2024-06 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/306543 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ n. 2024-06 ISSN 2571-130X DOI: 10.5817/WP_MUNI_ECON_2024-06 ‘Blessed are the Poor’ The Weberian Spirit of Capitalism Under Experimental Scrutiny Andrea Fazio / Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Marche Polytechnic University, Ancona, Italy; GLO, Essen, Germany Tommaso Reggiani / Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; Masaryk University, MUEEL lab, Brno, Czechia; IZA, Bonn, Germany Paolo Santori / Department of Philosophy, Tilburg University, The Netherlands ‘Blessed are the Poor’ The Weberian Spirit of Capitalism Under Experimental Scrutiny Abstract This paper empirically tests Max Weber’s thesis on how religious narratives, particularly the Protestant Ethic, influence attitudes toward wealth redistribution. Weber suggested that the Protestant Reformation, led to the belief that economic success was a sign of divine favor, legitimizing wealth inequality. Using a variation of the dictator game with ”blessed” framing, we measure how participants’ redistribution behaviors change when primed with this narrative. Our results show that low-income Protestants exposed to the ”blessed” narrative are less likely to redistribute wealth compared to Catholics, supporting Weber’s idea that Protestants justify inequality through divine providence. Furthermore, a narrative analysis reveals that Protestants interpret “blessing” as divine election, while Catholics focus more on well-being. These findings suggest that religious narratives significantly shape economic behaviors and preferences for redistribution, providing empirical support for Weber’s thesis. Masaryk University Faculty of Economics and Administration Authors: Andrea Fazio (ORCID: 0000-0003-1265-1065) / Marche Polytechnic University, Italy; GLO, Germany Tommaso Reggiani (ORCID: 0000-0002-3134-1049) / Cardiff University, United Kingdom; Masaryk University, Czechia; IZA, Germany Paolo Santori (ORCID: 0000-0001-5705-0461) / Tilburg University, The Netherlands Contact: [email protected] Creation date: 2024-11 Revision date: Keywords: dictator game, Max Weber, pro-social behaviour, redistribution JEL classification: J14, J15, Z12, Z1 Citation: Fazio, A., Reggiani, T., Santori, P. (2024). ‘Blessed are the Poor’ The Weberian Spirit of Capitalism Under Experimental Scrutiny. MUNI ECON Working Paper n. 2024-06. Brno: Masaryk University. https://doi.org/10.5817/WP_MUNI_ECON_2024-06 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Licensing of the final text published in the journal is in no way conditional on this working paper licence. MUNI ECON Working Paper n. 2024-06 ISSN 2571-130X ‘Blessed are the Poor’ The Weberian Spirit of Capitalism Under Experimental Scrutiny* Andrea Fazio†Tommaso Reggiani‡Paolo Santori§ October 15, 2024 Abstract This paper empirically tests Max Weber’s thesis on how religious narratives, particularly the Protestant Ethic, influence attitudes toward wealth redistribution. Weber suggested that the Protestant Reformation, led to the belief that economic success was a sign of divine favor, legitimizing wealth inequality. Using a variation of the dictator game with "blessed" framing, we measure how participants’ redistribution behaviors change when primed with this narrative. Our results show that low-income Protestants exposed to the "blessed" narrative are less likely to redistribute wealth compared to Catholics, supporting Weber’s idea that Protestants justify inequality through divine providence. Furthermore, a narrative analysis reveals that Protestants interpret “blessing” as divine election, while Catholics focus more on well-being. These findings suggest that religious narratives significantly shape economic behaviors and preferences for redistribution, providing empirical support for Weber’s thesis. Keywords: dictator game; Max Weber; pro-social behaviour; redistribution. JEL Codes: J14; J15; Z12; Z1. *We are grateful to the participants at the Inequality in Rome Summer Meeting for their precious comments and suggestions. Usual disclaimers apply. IRB approval from the School Research Ethics Committee of Cardiff Business School – ref: 1440. Open Science Foundation pre-registration – ref: https://osf.io/dcz7r/. †(Corresponding Author) Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Marche Polytechnic University, Ancona, Italy. GLO, Essen, Germany. Email: [email protected]. ‡Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; Masaryk University, MUEEL lab, Brno, Czechia; IZA, Bonn, Germany. Email: [email protected]. §Department of Philosophy, Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected]. 1 Introduction In his pioneering study of the Economics of Religion, Iannaccone (1998) distinguished three main directions for this old/new field of study. First, scholars can employ economic categories to interpret religious behavior, for example, applying utility functions to understand personal faith. Second, religious studies and theological ideas can be used as a reference point to evaluate and eventually criticize economic policies – think about the inquiries on the theological notion of debt to foster debt relief for poor countries (Lysaught, 2015). Finally, another line of inquiry can be used to study the economic consequences of religion. In the present paper, we take this third direction, studying how religious beliefs and narratives might affect preference for redistribution. Like many of our predecessors – see the section devoted to the literature review – our starting point is Max Weber’s book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Our study aims to test one of Weber’s core ideas empirically. According to Weber, an effect of the Protestant Reformation, especially in its Calvinist and Methodist ramifications, is that believers perceived to be blessed by God through a flourishing economic activity: “God Himself blessed His chosen ones through the success of their labours” (Weber, 2005a). The Reformation moved the barycentre of religious life from the monastic and extramundane life to the intermundane activity. Protestantism attached a system of psychological sanctions and rewards – the same that religions usually attached to sacred activity – to the fulfillment of daily tasks, above all the duties of a profession. According to Weber, the secularization of this Protestant Ethic is attached to the emergence of the spirit of capitalism. We are interested in testing one of the consequences of the notion of being ‘blessed’: “A specifically bourgeois economic ethic had grown up [...] the consciousness of standing in the fullness of God’s grace and being visibly blessed by Him [...] gave him the comforting assurance that the unequal distribution of the goods of this world was a special dispensation of Divine Providence which in these differences as in particular grace pursued secret ends unknown to men” (Weber, 2005b). In other words, people who perceive richness and economic success as the fruit of a ‘blessing’ are more inclined to legitimize wealth inequalities and consequently 2 less inclined to redistribute. Hence our research question: Is the narrative of ‘being chosen’ so influential on human behavior regarding redistribution matters? As the section devoted to the literature review shows, although we are not the first to answer this question empirically, our sample, methods, and results contribute to the ongoing debate. We want to empirically test Weber’s thesis through an experiment, specifically a variation of the Dictator Game. In our game, which we fictionally call the ‘Blessed Game’, we modify the framing of the standard dictator game by introducing an entitlement effect. We exogenously vary the wording of the standard dictator game in the instructions: in the treatment group, the participants are told that one – those who play as dictator – will be ‘the blessed’, whereas in the control group, the players are named ‘player 1’ and ‘player 2’. In the treatment and control groups, we measure the recipient’s expectation, i.e., how much the recipient thinks that the other participant (i.e., the dictator) is willing to share and how much the dictator shares. Our pool is recruited through Prolific, and it is composed of people living in the United States. To make the Weberian hypothesis salient, the pool comprises four groups: Catholics, Calvinists and Methodists, Atheists, and Protestants. The Methodists and Calvinists, and possibly Protestants should perceive the ‘blessing’ of wealth as a signal of being part of the community of the chosen ones (the dictators in our experiment). This narrative should bring the Calvinist, Methodist, and Protestant dictators to be less disposed than Catholics or atheists to share their wealth with the non-elected. In parallel, the ‘blessing’ narrative should also bring Calvinist, Methodist, and Protestant recipients the expectation of a lower amount from the dictator. As a complement to the Weberian framework, we expect the Catholic attitude toward the ‘blessing’ of wealth to be less punchy and to have more to do with the logic of gift. In Catholicism, wealth is one of God’s gifts to humanity, so it is something to share with fellow humans as God commands. Therefore, we expect Catholic dictators to be not affected by the manipulation; if anything, they should be more inclined to redistribute, and Catholic recipients should expect more from the dictators. The two religious narratives are different and complementary and should explain the different preferences and behaviors of the people affected by them. Our results show an effect of the ‘blessed’ priming, i.e., people exposed to the blessed 3 narrative tend to redistribute less than those not. This effect is present overall, although not significantly (probably due to the sample size). Our hypotheses are confirmed when we compare the Catholics with the Protestants. The latter tend to expect less and redistribute less. We also find that Calvinsts and Methodists tend to expect less than Catholics. The most interesting effect emerges when we include income differences. The low-income participants from the Protestant group seem to be very exposed to the ‘blessed’ narrative because, when they are dictators, they redistribute less, and when they are recipients, they expect to receive less than their Catholic counterparts. This reveals that the religious narratives entailed in the Protestant Ethic legitimize inequalities in the eyes of the ‘poor.’ The paper is organized as follows: We first review the literature to locate our paper among the current studies on the topic and emphasize our contribution. Then we expose our experimental methodology. Consequently, we present our results and discuss our findings, emphasizing the limitations of our analysis and possibilities for future research. Literature Review Our analysis intersects many branches of literature on the economic consequences of religion. Starting from Weber’s analysis, some authors inquired about the effect of Protestantism on economic performance. Becker and Woessmann (2009) employed country-level data from late 19th-century Prussia to show that Protestantism was associated with higher economic prosperity due to better literacy and education than Catholicism. More recently, Nunziata and Rocco (2016) demonstrated that Protestants from Switzerland, a religious minority in comparison to Calvinists and Methodists, had more chance to become entrepreneurs than Catholics. They found similar results (Nunziata and Rocco, 2018) when they examined the former Holy Roman Empire regions (mainly Germany): Protestants had 5% more chances to start a business than Catholics. Focusing on a slightly different topic, Spenkuch (2017) showed how Protestants work more hours than Catholics (even if this is not reflected in their respective salaries). The affinity of these studies and ours is the willingness to compare Catholic and Protestant economic behaviors. 4 Closer to our analysis are the studies that focus on the effect of religion on pro-social behavior. In two related studies, Norenzayan and Shariff (2008) and Shariff and Norenzayan (2007) inquired under what conditions religion increases pro-social behavior. They ran a dictator game (Shariff and Norenzayan, 2007) where the treatment group was implicitly exposed to the concept of God. They discovered that the willingness to give money to strangers increased when the presence of God was implicitly recalled. This result was valid both for the two samples they employed, i.e., students of the British Columbia University and a Canadian community in Vancouver. Interestingly enough, they showed that self-reported religiosity had little or no impact on pro-social behavior compared to the implicit recall of God, secular institutions, or social reputation (Norenzayan and Shariff, 2008). These results have been critically revised by Gomes and McCullough (2015): they showed that with a bigger sample and a change of wording in the priming, there is no relation between religious priming and generosity in the dictator game. While we also run a dictator game, we find that self-reported religiosity impacts the preference for redistribution between different religious groups. Therefore, we differ from Shariff and Norenzayan (2007) and the similar results found by Ahmed and Salas (2011), who argued that self-reported religiosity is unrelated to cooperation in the dictator and prisoner-dilemma games. The real target of our analysis is the literature focused on religion and (preference for) redistribution. Indirectly we engage with studies like the one by Manow (2004), which showed how Reform Protestant Movements (Calvinism, Anabaptism, and so on) are suspicious of state authority and want to restrict welfare state development in countries like Britain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. More directly, our research is built upon Bénabou and Tirole (2006) study that shows how the Protestant work ethic narrative causes religious individuals to opt for low tax rates to avoid income redistribution in favor of non-religious or less-religious citizens. Another example of a study that inspired us is the paper by Guiso et al. (2006), where through a study conducted via the General Social Survey with a sample of United States citizens, it is shown that religious people (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish) have a more negative attitude to redistribution than non-religious people. Something similar has been presented by Neustadt (2011), who conducted a Discrete Choice experiment in Switzerland and found that non-religious people 5 have a higher marginal willingness to pay than religious people. Similar results are present in Kirchmaier et al. (2018). Neustadt’s analysis also compared different religions: Protestants and Catholics. He found that the connection between Protestantism and the lower willingness to pay of the Protestants with respect to the Catholics is partially confirmed but not statistically significant. Our paper shows different results: low-income Protestants are less inclined to redistribute and to expect redistribution. In this sense, our study confirms the result of Basten and Betz (2013), who through an analysis of the votes to referenda in Switzerland, found that Protestants and Calvinists support less redistribution and government intervention than Catholics. Similar results came from a paper by Jordan (2014). There, the European social survey regarding welfare state attitudes of religious people living in 13 European countries showed that Catholics (both self-declared or people living in countries where Catholicism is still strong in the culture) redistribute more than Protestants. Even if we do not focus on the distinction between the welfare state and private charity or philanthropy, our study clearly contributes to this branch of literature by providing an empirically tested explanation of the Protestant’s attitude toward redistribution via the analysis of the ‘blessed’ narrative. Methodology and Data Experimental Design To investigate the role of religious narrative, we conducted an online experiment building on a standard dictator game (DG) with anonymous recipients (Forsythe et al., 1994). The dictator game works as follows: each participant is randomly paired with another participant. There are two possible roles: the dictator and the recipient. The dictator receives an endowment of 100 points, each point worth 0.01 USD, and decides how much to give to the recipient. The recipient is asked to guess how many points the dictator will keep for himself/herself. If the guess is correct, the recipients may earn an additional 0.20 USD. The game’s rules are the same for both treatment and control groups. However, while the control group receives the standard instructions for the game, where the labels of participants are Participant 1 (who 6 Table 2: Effect of Blessing (Dictators) Keep Keep Keep Keep Panel a: All Treated 2.915 2.205 2.675 2.697 (4.434) (4.587) (4.568) (4.574) Treated ×Atheist -0.684 -0.562 -1.330 -1.362 (6.268) (6.430) (6.403) (6.412) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist 0.268 1.041 -0.299 -0.363 (6.529) (6.655) (6.654) (6.666) Treated ×Protestant 1.559 1.604 0.185 0.204 (6.349) (6.497) (6.491) (6.499) Observations 416 416 416 416 R2 0.069 0.160 0.179 0.179 Panel b: High Income Treated 5.786 4.891 4.762 4.797 (5.460) (5.818) (5.735) (5.731) Treated ×Atheist -2.191 -1.606 -2.748 -2.981 (8.353) (9.078) (8.980) (8.976) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist 4.511 2.087 1.753 1.925 (8.350) (8.723) (8.622) (8.616) Treated ×Protestant -8.345 -9.503 -11.098 -11.045 (7.809) (8.265) (8.143) (8.137) Observations 274 274 274 274 R2 0.072 0.168 0.210 0.215 Panel b: Low Income Treated -5.254 -7.182 -7.107 -5.277 (7.656) (8.765) (8.783) (8.651) Treated ×Atheist 6.924 9.844 9.597 8.099 (9.626) (10.683) (10.796) (10.606) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist -4.020 3.673 1.272 -2.073 (10.506) (11.630) (11.596) (11.469) Treated ×Protestant 26.018** 34.435*** 38.725*** 38.618*** (11.220) (12.850) (12.841) (12.590) Observations 142 142 142 142 R2 0.137 0.337 0.382 0.412 Mean Dep. Var. 66.17 66.17 66.17 66.17 Basic Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Labour Market Controls No Yes Yes Yes Political Orientation Controls No No Yes Yes Subjective Social Status No No No Yes Notes: OLS Estimates. Basic controls are total approvals, gender, age, age squared, ethnicity, education, and marital status. Labor market controls include employment status. Standard errors in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 13 Table 3: Effect of Blessing (Recipients) Guess Guess Guess Guess Panel a: All Treated -6.070 -7.003 -6.387 -6.322 (5.000) (5.159) (5.208) (5.227) Treated ×Atheist 4.184 4.338 3.385 3.319 (7.081) (7.344) (7.407) (7.427) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist 7.288 6.449 6.342 6.202 (7.239) (7.383) (7.422) (7.473) Treated ×Protestant 9.361 9.494 9.176 9.143 (7.225) (7.361) (7.384) (7.396) Observations 417 417 417 417 R2 0.042 0.138 0.143 0.144 Panel b: High Income Treated -1.961 2.280 2.917 3.180 (6.336) (6.550) (6.673) (6.687) Treated ×Atheist -7.050 -10.896 -10.677 -11.086 (9.731) (9.993) (10.149) (10.172) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist 2.953 -5.184 -5.606 -6.017 (8.876) (9.022) (9.096) (9.119) Treated ×Protestant 0.124 -5.486 -6.389 -6.240 (9.337) (9.421) (9.565) (9.575) Observations 266 266 266 266 R2 0.044 0.250 0.254 0.256 Panel b: Low Income Treated -13.638 -9.184 -6.278 -7.429 (8.319) (9.362) (9.619) (9.710) Treated ×Atheist 17.646 9.407 6.285 7.015 (11.124) (12.701) (12.897) (12.933) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist 14.680 7.566 6.519 9.483 (13.110) (14.622) (14.902) (15.268) Treated ×Protestant 31.505** 24.568* 22.894 23.824* (12.541) (13.786) (13.871) (13.920) Observations 151 151 151 151 R2 0.086 0.244 0.268 0.274 Mean Dep. Var. 55.17 55.17 55.17 55.17 Basic Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Labour Market Controls No Yes Yes Yes Political Orientation Controls No No Yes Yes Subjective Social Status No No No Yes Notes: OLS Estimates. Basic controls are total approvals, gender, age, age squared, ethnicity, education, and marital status. Labor market controls include employment status. Standard errors in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 14 Table 4: Effect of Blessing on Opinions Ineq. too large Ineq. too large Ineq. too large Ineq. too large Panel a: All Treated 0.113 0.076 -0.039 -0.051 (0.134) (0.136) (0.124) (0.124) Treated ×Atheist -0.093 -0.058 0.063 0.078 (0.189) (0.193) (0.175) (0.175) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist -0.014 0.025 0.110 0.131 (0.195) (0.197) (0.179) (0.179) Treated ×Protestant -0.313 -0.312 -0.288 -0.276 (0.192) (0.194) (0.176) (0.176) Observations 833 833 833 833 R2 0.099 0.137 0.295 0.298 Panel b: High Income Treated 0.079 0.083 -0.015 -0.036 (0.165) (0.173) (0.156) (0.156) Treated ×Atheist 0.105 0.079 0.195 0.224 (0.253) (0.271) (0.245) (0.245) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist 0.016 0.005 0.094 0.116 (0.241) (0.250) (0.226) (0.225) Treated ×Protestant -0.165 -0.190 -0.184 -0.178 (0.238) (0.246) (0.223) (0.222) Observations 540 540 540 540 R2 0.100 0.150 0.314 0.320 Panel b: Low Income Treated 0.241 0.326 0.163 0.165 (0.228) (0.244) (0.227) (0.227) Treated ×Atheist -0.401 -0.369 -0.221 -0.222 (0.294) (0.312) (0.290) (0.291) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist -0.153 -0.316 -0.257 -0.262 (0.333) (0.349) (0.324) (0.325) Treated ×Protestant -0.668** -0.801** -0.770** -0.772** (0.335) (0.353) (0.327) (0.327) Observations 293 293 293 293 R2 0.122 0.221 0.347 0.347 Mean Dep. Var. 4.071 4.071 4.071 4.071 Basic Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Labour Market Controls No Yes Yes Yes Political Orientation Controls No No Yes Yes Subjective Social Status No No No Yes Notes: OLS Estimates. Basic controls are total approvals, gender, age, age squared, ethnicity, education, and marital status. Labor market controls include employment status. Standard errors in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 15 Discussion To appreciate the relevance of our results, we can distinguish two meanings of ‘Protestant’: one narrow and one broad. The latter refers to the title of Weber’s book, where he identifies with Protestants all those religious confessions that followed the schism in the Christian world. In this sense, the ‘Protestant Ethic’ is opposed to a ‘Catholic Ethic,’ the latter being more connected to what happened before (Scholasticism) and after the Reformation (CounterReformation and so on). This broad understanding of Protestant is testified by Weber’s more acute critics like Michael Novak who wrote ‘The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ (Fanfani, 1984,Novak, 1993). Adopting this broader definition, our experiment shows that the US ‘Protestant’ world composed of Protestants exposed to the priming of blessing is less inclined to redistribute than the Catholic counterpart. Also, when compared with Catholics, we find that Protestants, Calvinists and Methodists expect less money from the ‘blessed’. Although not significant, this effect suggests that the narrative activates a self-understanding of being in a direct relationship with God, of being chosen or elected. In turn, this brought Protestants (broadly speaking) to interpret what they have as something deserved, i.e., they receive a validation of their hard work. The blessed priming put a veil of divine social justice on wealth, making individuals less inclined to redistribute or to expect redistribution. Under the light of the broader notion of Protestantism, the narrow version acquires even more significance. The Protestants of our experiment, as distinct not only from the Catholics but also from the Calvinists and Methodists, are less inclined to redistribute. We find a statistically significant effect when we analyze the low-income Protestants with the low-income Catholics. The latter exposed to the blessed narrative are less inclined to share what they have or to expect sharing from the other players in the game. While the income level might appear a nuance, it has profound implications in the research on how the religious element impacts the moral psychology of poor people. In the narrow Protestants of our experiment, the blessing narrative activates a divinely inspired ‘just world belief’ (Furnham, 2003), i.e., the idea that wealth inequalities are not simply a fact of life but how things are supposed to be because God wants so. The lower willingness to redistribute seems to pair with the acceptance of inequalities and 16 poverty as something ‘deserved’ while this element is less evident in the Catholic participants. To sum up, the narrow notion of Protestants statistically confirms the Weberian hypothesis that the broader idea of Protestants was visible but not significant. Religious narratives, like many other kinds of narratives (Hillenbrand and Verrina, 2022,Shiller, 2020), do play a role in people’s preferences for redistribution. While describing a general trend that develops throughout centuries, Weber’s hypothesis on the economic impact of the protestant ethic seems to remain, to a certain extent, a valid heuristic tool to understand contemporary phenomena. The limitations of our analysis emerge more or less explicitly in the discussion. On the one hand, the reduced sample size of our experiment might be related to the statistical (non) significance of our results concerning the broad Protestant group. On the other hand, the religious confessions that constitute the US Protestant world are many more than the three we inquired about (see Steensland et al., 2000). While we focus on Protestants (narrowly speaking), Calvinists, and Methodists, we leave aside Evangelicals, Baptists, Nondenominational Protestants, Pentecostals, Episcopalians/Anglicans, Adventists, Anabaptists, and so on. Moreover, Weber was very clear in stating that the spirit of capitalism is a secularized version of the protestant ethic. This means that the economic impact of religious notions such as ‘calling’ or ‘blessing’ extended beyond the scope of established religions. In the US, this might also be connected to the fact that even certain Catholic spheres were indirectly impacted by the Weberian spirit of capitalism as testified by many catholic authors such as Novak (1993),Gregg (2001), and Sirico (2012) who express very pro-free market society doctrines. As often happens in this kind of study, our limitations constitute patterns for future research. The experiment might be extended both quantitatively (enlarging the sample) and qualitatively (including more religious confessions or comparing US believers to other countries’ believers). What is sure is that in a world of growing inequalities, the religious/spiritual component is a determinant that cannot be anymore marginalized or ignored. 17 References Ahmed, A. and O. Salas (2011). Do Men and Women Respond Differently to a Coercive Bargaining Situation? Experimental Evidence from the Ultimatum Game. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 81(2), 444–451. Basten, C. and F. Betz (2013). 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N Atheist Kept 65.556 21.414 108 Guess 55.596 24.736 109 Inequality Too Large 0.912 0.283 217 Luck Most Important 0.226 0.419 217 Total Approvals 1557.472 1094.097 218 Female 0.5 0.501 218 Age 36.436 11.693 218 Full Time 0.472 0.5 218 White 0.784 0.412 218 Tertiary Education 0.505 0.501 218 Married or Civil Union 0.225 0.418 218 Republican 0.05 0.219 218 Household Income 7.037 3.875 218 Socioeconomic Status 4.509 1.812 218 Calvinist/Methodist Kept 65.083 22.158 96 Guess 56.98 24.859 99 Inequality Too Large 0.703 0.458 195 Luck Most Important 0.087 0.283 195 Total Approvals 1173.308 1064.889 195 Female 0.544 0.499 195 Age 41.093 14.526 193 Full Time 0.523 0.501 195 White 0.897 0.304 195 Tertiary Education 0.251 0.435 195 Married or Civil Union 0.672 0.471 195 Republican 0.354 0.479 195 Household Income 8.497 3.644 195 Socioeconomic Status 5.413 1.623 195 Catholics Kept 66.704 24.34 108 Guess 53.495 29.163 109 Inequality Too Large 0.747 0.436 217 Luck Most Important 0.101 0.303 217 Total Approvals 1887.028 1273.225 217 Female 0.502 0.501 217 Age 42.134 14.361 216 Full Time 0.636 0.482 217 White 0.839 0.369 217 Tertiary Education 0.207 0.406 217 Married or Civil Union 0.23 0.422 217 Republican 0.336 0.474 217 Household Income 8.189 3.477 217 Socioeconomic Status 5.452 1.661 217 Protestants Kept 67.226 25.794 106 Guess 54.752 25.737 101 Inequality Too Large 0.696 0.461 207 Luck Most Important 0.087 0.282 207 Total Approvals 2360.546 1825.083 207 Female 0.488 0.501 207 Age 43.807 12.891 207 Full Time 0.618 0.487 207 White 0.763 0.426 207 Tertiary Education 0.271 0.445 207 Married or Civil Union 0.773 0.42 207 Republican 0.329 0.471 207 Household Income 8.279 3.557 207 Socioeconomic Status 5.396 1.615 207 22 Table C1: Tobit Model Dependent Variables: Keep Full Sample Guess Full Sample Keep HI Guess HI Keep LI Guess LI Treated 1.461 -6.763 6.759 4.678 -10.085 -10.609 (5.788) (5.785) (7.526) (7.207) (8.867) (9.158) Treated ×Atheist 1.043 3.610 -1.820 -14.869 14.858 10.032 (8.111) (8.172) (11.731) (10.934) (10.701) (12.286) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist 0.761 7.343 3.968 -7.507 1.373 13.421 (8.396) (8.254) (11.223) (9.833) (11.980) (14.595) Treated ×Protestant 4.327 9.047 -10.019 -9.219 43.122*** 26.409** (8.233) (8.141) (10.748) (10.319) (13.019) (13.164) Basic Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Labour Market Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Political Orientation Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Subjective Social Status Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Observations 416 417 274 266 142 151 Uncensored Observations 309 353 192 222 117 131 29 Appendix D 30 Table D1: Effect of Blessing HH Income Interaction (Dictators) Keep Keep Keep Keep Treated -8.690 -10.766 -8.723 -8.188 (12.251) (12.689) (12.670) (12.693) Treated ×Atheist ×Household Income -1.349 -1.415 -1.217 -1.169 (1.818) (1.854) (1.848) (1.850) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist ×Household Income 1.659 0.708 0.725 0.783 (1.918) (1.960) (1.954) (1.957) Treated ×Protestant ×Household Income -3.897** -4.226** -4.030** -4.022** (1.893) (1.985) (1.981) (1.982) Basic Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Labour Market Controls No Yes Yes Yes Political Orientation Controls No No Yes Yes Subjective Social Status No No No Yes Observations 416 416 416 416 R-squared 0.099 0.185 0.202 0.203 Table D2: Effect of Blessing HH Income Interaction (Recipients) Guess Guess Guess Guess Treated -19.007 -23.334* -22.761* -22.292* (12.038) (12.749) (12.909) (12.956) Treated ×Atheist ×Household Income -3.437* -3.586* -3.472* -3.433* (1.910) (2.015) (2.043) (2.046) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist ×Household Income -1.171 -1.809 -1.812 -1.694 (1.989) (2.064) (2.085) (2.100) Treated ×Protestant ×Household Income -5.045** -5.891*** -5.836*** -5.764*** (2.023) (2.111) (2.125) (2.132) Basic Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Labour Market Controls No Yes Yes Yes Political Orientation Controls No No Yes Yes Subjective Social Status No No No Yes Observations 417 417 417 417 R-squared 0.065 0.164 0.168 0.169 31 Table D3: Effect of Blessing HH Income Interaction Ineq. Too Large Ineq. Too Large Ineq. Too Large Ineq. Too Large Treated 0.314 0.226 -0.037 -0.040 (0.342) (0.352) (0.321) (0.321) Treated ×Atheist ×Household Income 0.064 0.042 0.024 0.024 (0.052) (0.054) (0.049) (0.049) Treated ×Calvinist-Methodist ×Household Income 0.028 0.022 0.011 0.010 (0.055) (0.056) (0.051) (0.051) Treated ×Protestant ×Household Income 0.092* 0.093* 0.077 0.077 (0.055) (0.056) (0.051) (0.051) Basic Controls Yes Yes Yes Yes Labour Market Controls No Yes Yes Yes Political Orientation Controls No No Yes Yes Subjective Social Status No No No Yes Observations 833 833 833 833 R-squared 0.116 0.160 0.309 0.310 32 Appendix E 33 Figure E1: Differences in Narratives (High Income) 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 Fortune and Luck General Well-being Good Fortune and Luck Life Satisfaction and Positivity Spiritual Blessings Dominant Topic (High Income) Controls Atheist Calv-Met Catholic Protestant 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 Fortune and Luck General Well-being Good Fortune and Luck Life Satisfaction and Positivity Spiritual Blessings Dominant Topic (High Income) Treated Atheist Calv-Met Catholic Protestant Notes: The Figure shows differences in dominant topic by religious group. Figure E2: Differences in Narratives (Low Income) 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 Fortune and Luck General Well-being Good Fortune and Luck Life Satisfaction and Positivity Spiritual Blessings Dominant Topic (Low Income) Controls Atheist Calv-Met Catholic Protestant 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 Fortune and Luck General Well-being Good Fortune and Luck Life Satisfaction and Positivity Spiritual Blessings Dominant Topic (Low Income) Treated Atheist Calv-Met Catholic Protestant Notes: The Figure shows differences in dominant topic by religious group. 34 MUNI Econ Working Paper Series (since 2018) 2024-06 Fazio, A., Reggiani, T., Santori, P. (2024). ‘Blessed are the Poor’ The Weberian Spirit of Capitalism Under Experimental Scrutiny. MUNI ECON Working Paper n. 2024-06. Brno: Masaryk University. https://doi.org/10.5817/WP_MUNI_ECON_2024-06 2024-05 Pulina, M., Salis, A. (2024). Dynamics and trends of drug dealing: a local labour system perspective. MUNI ECON Working Paper n. 2024-05. 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