By Nicholas Cornell. Rice University.
This paper expands on the body of literature relating spiritual or religious beliefs to eco- nomic outcomes. It focuses on a hypothetical mechanism whereby cultural values are produced by religious beliefs and these cultural values, in turn, produce economic outcomes. World Val- ues Survey data is leveraged to provide evidence for this mechanism using the proportion of a countrys population that believes in heaven or hell and a measure of the countrys work ethic.
Read the full paper here.