Recent research has shown that the "spirit of capitalism"--a preference for wealth itself, in addition to consumption--has important implications for growth and asset pricing. This paper explores how the spirit of capitalism affects saving and consumption behavior. We demonstrate that the spirit...

According to Schumpeter (1934), entrepreneurs are driven to innovate not for the fruits of success but for success itself. This description of entrepreneurship echoes Weber’s (1958 ) description of the “spirit of capitalism,” which states that people enjoy the accumulation of wealth...