Few theories in the social sciences have gained more widespread acceptance than Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - despite a lack of conclusive empirical evidence. At the core of Weber's theory lies a connection between Protestantism and attitudes toward work. Using...

We implement a new approach for estimating the persuasive effects of political advertising. Our empirical strategy exploits FCC regulations that result in plausibly exogenous variation in the number of impressions across the borders of neighboring counties. Applying this approach to uniquely...