Education is another important cultural dimension that can have substantial consequences on the economic development of a country. Richard Easterlin argued that ‘the worldwide spread of modern economic growth has depended chiefly on the diffusion of a body of knowledge concerning new production techniques’ (Easterlin 1981: 1). Like Weber, Easterlin presented his view on the importance of the Reformation in the development of capitalism. He argues that it represented a crucial cultural moment as it made literacy an essential part of religious devotion, and almost suddenly, and for completely non-economic reasons, the ignorance that characterised the medieval age was rejected by society, and in its place spurred demands for investing in human capital.
A perfect representation of this case can be seen in Scotland, where right at the dusk of the Middle Ages, in 1560, the Scottish Reformation was implemented, and its founding principle was the free education of the poor. Scotland is the place where the first local school tax was established, and this environment facilitated the growth of the Scottish Enlightenment: David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, Adam Ferguson, and the godfather
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That is, even if two phenomena (in this case, Protestantism and economic growth) had a similar evolution, it does not mean that the two are linked. There can be other underlying reasons, for instance, the invention of the printing machine by Gutenberg in the 16th century, which allowed the exchange of information on a larger scale at a lesser cost, thus increasing prosperity and education, another important cultural dimension. In addition, the industrial revolution and the patenting of the steam engine in 1769 deepened the separation between Protestants and Catholics, the former enjoying a more prosperous