The Counter-Reformation, Science, and Long-Term Growth: A Black Legend?
https://t.co/GFCtuuqsOX
Matías Cabello
MLU Halle-Wittenberg
Date Written: March 15, 2023
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4389708
Abstract
Fearing the spread of dangerous ideas, Catholics reacted to Protestantism imposing intellectual control. Did this reaction, as some historians claim, suffocate science and thereby depress long-term economic growth? The answer seems positive. I first show that Catholic and Protestant cities in Europe shared comparable numbers of scientists per capita before the Counter-Reformation, but Catholics experienced a subsequent collapse coinciding with the Counter-Reformation’s timing and intensity across cities. Protestants also attempted intellectual control, but failed (due to poor logistics, I conclude), and science remained mostly unaffected. I then show that the Counter-Reformation shock to science endured—largely due to an empirically-verified mechanism, namely the reactivation of Counter-Reformation-rooted institutions during conservative uprisings centuries later—and find long-term effects of science on the economy (a 50%-elasticity) which can be corroborated using alternative variance unrelated to the Counter-Reformation. Overall, the Counter-Reformation appears to be one of the largest shocks to science in modern history.
Keywords: Science, long-term economic growth, Catholicism, Counter-Reformation, Inquisition, Spanish Empire, censorship, dictatorships, conservatism, political economy, causes of persistence
JEL Classification: N00, P00, N10, O11, O10, O30, O43, Z12, F50
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