Abstract: Is it true that the Catholic reaction to Protestantism—the Counter-Reformation—led to scientific and economic decline for hundreds of years? Introducing biography-based evidence, I show that Catholic and Protestant European cities long shared comparable trends of scientists per capita. But after imposing intellectual control in response to the Reformation, Catholics experienced a dramatic scientific collapse coinciding with the Counter-Reformation’s different timing and intensity across cities. Reassuringly, science began to recover after the Counter-Reformation was dismantled, but the recovery stagnated when Counter-Reformation-rooted institutions were revived centuries later against new ideological threats. Although it has largely vanished by now, the gap in science that emerged during the Counter-Reformation was enormous, lasted centuries, and helps explaining Europe’s unequal modern economic growth. Protestants also tried to impose their own bigotry but lacked sufficient coordination and authority. Had they been more effective, modern science and sustained economic growth might have never taken off.
Media coverage: Weekendavisen (leading Danish newspaper).
Blogs: Cremieux Recueil; Alice Evans; Javiero; Matthew Yglesias.
Abstract: Today's leading historians of science have "debunked" the notion that religious dogmatism and science were largely in conflict in Western history: conflict was rare and inconsequential, the relationship between religion and science was constructive overall. This view contradicts that of a group of economists, who are beginning to report empirical evidence suggesting pervasive conflict, either in the present or during various historical settings. Who is right? This paper presents quantitative evidence—from the continental level down to the personal one—suggesting that religious dogmatism has been indeed detrimental to science on balance. Beginning with Europe as a whole, it shows that the religious revival associated with the Reformations coincides with scientific deceleration, while the secularization of science during the Enlightenment coincides with scientific re-acceleration. It then discusses how regional- and city-level dynamics further support a causal interpretation running from religious dogmatism to diminished science. Finally, it presents person-level statistical evidence suggesting that, throughout modern Western history, and within a given city and time period, scientists who doubted God and Scriptures have been considerably more productive than those with dogmatic beliefs.
Prepared for the reference series Economics, Religion and Public Policy (World Scientific), edited by Vladimir Maltsev and Nirvikar Singh.
Coverage: Marginal Revolution
Abstract: It has long been argued that Europe’s fragmentation of authority fostered competition for talent and limited the suppression of ideas, thereby enabling artistic, scientific, and economic development. To test this hypothesis, the paper introduces a city-level panel of creativity measures together with measures of political and religious fragmentation from 1100 to 1900. Rooted in medieval history, both kinds of fragmentation are shown to be interconnected and strong predictors of creativity. But through which causal mechanism? Except for the 16th and 17th centuries, when the fragmentation of authority became key in limiting the repression of subversive ideas, the primal mechanism appears to be the pluricentral demand for genius across competing authorities (especially secular ones). Crucially, these authorities founded competing educational institutions that outlived fragmentation itself, thereby significantly stimulating creativity also in the long term.
Coverage: LSE Department of Economic History
Abstract: Why has economic growth in advanced economies remained nearly constant for more than 200 years, despite dramatic changes in education, institutions, and other factors traditionally thought to determine growth? This paper proposes an answer based on a previously unnoticed phenomenon: science, measured in various ways, has been growing at an almost perfectly steady rate since around 1720. This 'new Kaldor fact' can be modeled as the underlying cause of constant long-term economic growth.
Abstract: Constant elasticity of substitution (CES) functions with high capital-labor complementarity have been increasingly used to model macroeconomic phenomena. This note discusses some peculiarities of growth in this setting that are usually neglected in the literature. It shows that, if the elasticity of substitution is below one, neoclassical growth with Harrod-neutral technical change is bounded by the savings rate and may converge towards a unitary capital share. Not included in Solow's original contribution, these results remain largely unknown.
Abstract: How does science perform under autocracies? I study the emergence, productivity, and migration of scientists under autocracies worldwide during the last three centuries. I find that autocracies produce very heterogeneous outcomes depending on a range of factors, including culture and ideology. I show how repression-driven brain drains reduce scientific potential dramatically and systematically, especially in recent decades. Still, some autocracies have been able to outperform democracies by wide margins in some dimensions. I discuss the factors explaining different outcomes and what we can learn from top-down policies addressing market imperfections.
Abstract: Although recent decades have witnessed the decline of interest rates and the labor share, most of modern growth featured macroeconomic constants that need to be explained. This paper shows how macroeconomic constants result from physical and anthropological constraints in a model of endogenous mechanization. In contrast to canonical endogenous growth models, the growth mechanism does not require nonrival knowledge, nor imperfect competition, nor assuming increasing returns to all factors (including spending in innovation), nor a long-term elasticity of substitution above unity. The calibration is subject to less degrees of freedom than in standard macroeconomic models and matches observables closely. Deep issues in growth theory, such as the disputed interpretation of factor augmentation, Uzawa's growth theorem, and Salter's critique on biased innovations can be reinterpreted through the lens of the model.
Abstract: Using biographical data of scientist and inventors, I show that research activity across the world is largely exogenous to income and that it predicts economic development over the long run better than any other established predictor. I find that scientists and inventors have an impact on income that peaks after a lag of 100 years with an elasticity of 30%. This long-term correlation has been steadily rising on average since the beginning of modern growth, what may suggest an even greater importance of science and invention in the future.