The Counter-Reformation, Science, and Long-Term Growth: A Black Legend?

TL;DR — A working paper using data on scientists in European cities to argue that the Counter-Reformation’s intellectual controls caused a long-lasting collapse in Catholic science.

An economics working paper by Matías Cabello (first draft November 2021; this draft dated September 5, 2023), later presented as his job-market paper. It asks whether the “Black Legend” — the claim that the Catholic response to Protestantism led to centuries of scientific and economic decline — holds up.

Using a biography-based dataset of scientists, the paper reports that Catholic and Protestant European cities had comparable trends in scientists per capita until the Counter-Reformation imposed intellectual control (the Inquisition, censorship and related institutions), after which Catholic cities show a sharp fall in science, with timing and intensity varying across cities. Science recovered when those institutions were dismantled and stagnated again when they were revived. The paper ties the gap to Europe’s uneven modern growth and adds that Protestant authorities also tried to impose controls but lacked the coordination to do so. The 97 pages include extensive appendices.

What it is: an unpublished, not-yet-peer-reviewed economics working paper. It has drawn some public criticism as correlational. The author has distributed it online, but no stable rights-holder host was verified.

Where this came from

• A copy saved in October 2026.

97 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.