Max Weber - Call your office

From Economic Freedom and Religion: An Empirical Investigation by Arye L. Hillman and Niklas Potrafke. From the Abstract.

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 dataset 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.

It is easy to imagine the causative mechanisms that might make this true. But is it true? 2001-2010 is too small a time frame. 137 is a small sample (though a high portion of the world set). Correlation is not causation. Lot's of reasons to accept this as a marginal data point on an issue that probably is incapable of resolution (too many variables in too complex a system).

"There has been little study of the determinants of economic freedom" is what leapt out at me. Max Weber was all over this a century ago with The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. I know there have been barrels of ink spilled over his thesis. Are Hillman and Potrafke right, that no one has empirically tested the propositions advanced in his book? I struggle to believe that. Perhaps.