So before I attempt to address some notes. My academic background is in political science focused on conflict and development. So I am not overly familiar with the historical literature on this topic. But, there has been quite a bit of research on this in my field and in Econ.

So my understanding is that there is actually very little in support of there being an effect of Protestant religious background of states on economic factors nowadays. There is correlation but as the saying goes that is not causation. Rather what is more like is that we observe that regions in Europe that were more economically advanced and ready for the large economic growth seen in the 17-18 century were more likely to adopt Protestant religions. Some factors that can effect both likelihood of going Protestant and economic development include literacy rates, more capital (protect early converts and wealths generates wealth), more trading (spread of ideas but also wealth generating). This is a type of selection effect.

There is something to be said about the ways in which different countries did colonialism that led to those colonized by the British being both more Protestant and wealthier and those by the French and Spanish more Catholic and less wealthy (see Acemoglu et al bellow). This also pushes the correlation between Protestantism and Economic development up without Protestantism actually being a causal factor.

Overall it’s rly hard to address the causal effect of things like religious belief on economic development. But there seems to be little evidence of it… there may be many indirect and interacting effects that were not considered yet in the lit so I am not saying there is no chance of it. But I personally think the evidence of it being purely a selection effect more convincing.

Citations

Delacroix, Jacques, and Francois Nielsen. "The beloved myth: Protestantism and the rise of industrial capitalism in nineteenth-century Europe." Social Forces 80.2 (2001): 509-553.

Becker, Sascha O., and Ludger Woessmann. "Was Weber wrong? A human capital theory of Protestant economic history." The quarterly journal of economics 124.2 (2009): 531-596.

Cantoni, Davide. "The economic effects of the Protestant Reformation: testing the Weber hypothesis in the German lands." Journal of the European Economic Association 13.4 (2015): 561-598.

Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. "The colonial origins of comparative development: An empirical investigation." American economic review 91.5 (2001): 1369-1401.

In support of the Protestant work ethics thesis:

Inglehart, Ronald. "The renaissance of political culture." American political science review 82.4 (1988): 1203-1230.