新教改革的经济学分析

本文旨在从经济层面解释新教教会最初的成败。本文认为,通过操纵教义、排除异己以及各种形式的价格歧视,中世纪的罗马天主教会最终将其寻求Z商品“精神服务”的信徒置于叛教的边缘。这种垄断的做法鼓励了竞争对手的进入,其中有些对手与国内政府是同盟。本文假定,以封建制衰落、财富分配相对不稳定为特征的新兴企业家社会鼓励新教的进入,而主要是挥霍而不是创造财富的更具同质性的寻租社会则阻碍新教的进入。在这些社会中,罗马教会更有可能延续其价格歧视的做法。通过将长子继承制和城市增长作为财富稳定性的替代指标,可以对这一命题进行非正式的检验。

An Economic Analysis of the Protestant Reformation

This paper seeks to explain the initial successes and failures of Protestantism on economic grounds. It argues that the medieval Roman Catholic Church, through doctrinal manipulation, the exclusion of rivals, and various forms of price discrimination, ultimately places members seeking the Z good ＂spiritual services＂ on the margin of defection. These monopolistic practices encouraged entry by rival forms, some of which aligned with civil governments. The paper hypothesizes that Protestant entry was facilitated in emergent entrepreneurial societies characterized by the decline of feudalism and relatively unstable distribution of wealth and repressed in more homogeneous, rent-seeking societies that were mostly dissipating rather than creating wealth. In these societies the Roman Church was more able to continue the practice of price discrimination. Informal tests of this proposition are conducted by considering primogeniture and urban growth as proxies for wealth stability.