The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is Weber's most famous work.[25] It has been argued that this work should not be viewed as a detailed study of Protestantism, but rather as an introduction into Weber's later works, especially his studies of interaction between various religious ideas and economic behaviour as part of the rationalisation of the economic sphere.[26] In the essay, Weber puts forward the thesis that Calvinist ethic and ideas influenced the development of capitalism.[26] He notes the post-Reformation shift of Europe's economic centre away from Catholic countries such as France, Spain and Italy, and toward Protestant countries such as the Netherlands, England, Scotland and Germany. Weber also notes that societies having more Protestants were those with a more highly developed capitalist economy.[27]: 15–16 Similarly, in societies with different religions, most successful business leaders were Protestant.[26] Weber thus argued that Roman Catholicism impeded the development of the capitalist economy in the West, as did other religions such as Confucianism and Buddhism elsewhere in the world:[13]