The New Economics of Religion

By Sriya Iyer. Social Science Research Network, 2016

353 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The economics of religion is a relatively new field of research in economics. This survey serves two purposes--it is backward-looking in that it traces the historical and sociological origins of this field, and it is forward-looking in that it examines the insights and research themes that are offered by economists to investigate religion globally in the modern world. Several factors have influenced the economics of religion: (1) new developments in theoretical models including spatial models of religious markets and evolutionary models of religious traits; (2) empirical work that addresses innovatively econometric identification in examining causal influences on religious behavior; (3) new research in the economic history of religion that considers religion as an independent, rather than a dependent, variable; and (4) more studies of religion outside the Western world. Based on these developments, this paper discusses four themes--first, secularization, pluralism, regulation, and economic growth; second, religious markets, club goods, differentiated products, and networks; third, identification including secular competition and charitable giving; and fourth, conflict and cooperation in developing societies. In reviewing this paradoxically ancient yet burgeoning field, this paper puts forward unanswered questions for scholars of the economics of religion to reflect upon in years to come.

Subfields: Demography, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a072e115c4c82fcb5277aa1f120150ee226571e4

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In Demography

1. Noam Yuchtman
2. Jeremiah Dittmar
3. Davide Cantoni
4. F. Caicedo
5. Kevin H. O'Rourke
6. Alan Fernihough

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Noam Yuchtman
2. Jeremiah Dittmar
3. Davide Cantoni

Citations in the corpus

• Religious Competition and Reallocation: the Political Economy of Secularization in the Protestant Reformation* (2017, background): “Prior research on religious competition focuses on the relationship between producers and consumers of religion in a market for salvation (Iannaccone, 1998; Ekelund et al., 2006; Iyer, 2016).”
• Randomizing Religion: the Impact of Protestant Evangelism on Economic Outcomes* (2020, neutral): “…QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS I. INTRODUCTION A literature dating back at least to Adam Smith and Max Weber has argued that religiosity is associated with a set of characteristics that promote economic success, including diligence, thriftiness, trust, and cooperation (Iannaccone 1998; Iyer 2016).”