Why are historically Catholic countries and regions generally more corrupt and less competitive
than historically Protestant ones? How has institutionalization of religion influenced the
prosperity of countries in Europe and the Americas? This open access book addresses these
critical questions by elucidating the hegemonic and emancipatory religious factors leading to
these dissimilarities between countries. The book features up-to-date mixed methods from
interdisciplinary research contributing to existing studies in the sociology of religion field
by demonstrating-for the first time-the effect of the mutually reinforcing configuration of
multiple prosperity triggers (religion-politics-environment). It demonstrates the differences
in the institutionalization of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism by applying quantitative and
qualitative methods and by performing a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of 65 countries.
The author also provides a comprehensive survey and results of empirical research on different
theories of development focusing on the influence of religion.
