Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP3588
Authors: Luigi Guiso; Paola Sapienza; Luigi Zingales
Abstract: Since Max Weber, there has been an active debate on the impact of religion on people?s economic attitudes. Much of the existing evidence, however, is based on cross-country studies in which this impact is confounded by differences in other institutional factors. We use the World Values Surveys to identify the relationship between intensity of religious beliefs and economic attitudes, controlling for country fixed effects. We study several economic attitudes toward cooperation, the government, working women, legal rules, thriftiness, and the market economy. We also distinguish across religious denominations, differentiating on whether a religion is dominant in a country. We find that on average, religious beliefs are associated with ?good? economic attitudes, where ?good? is defined as conducive to higher per capita income and growth. Yet religious people tend to be more racist and less favorable with respect to working women. These effects differ across religious denominations. Overall, we find that Christian religions are more positively associated with attitudes conducive to economic growth.
Keywords: economic growth; institutions; preferences; religion
JEL Codes: A10; E00; N40; Z10
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| religious beliefs (Z12) | economic attitudes (P19) |
| religious beliefs (Z12) | per capita income (D31) |
| religious beliefs (Z12) | economic growth (O49) |
| religious beliefs (Z12) | cooperation (P13) |
| religious beliefs (Z12) | trust in government institutions (H10) |
| religious beliefs (Z12) | racist attitudes (J15) |
| religious beliefs (Z12) | support for working women (J16) |
| religious upbringing (Z12) | intolerance (J15) |
| Christian religions (Z12) | economic attitudes conducive to growth (F43) |