People's opium? Religion and economic attitudes

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Guiso, L; Sapienza, P; Zingales, L
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Sassari; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/S0304-3932(02)00202-7
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 225-282
• 关键词: Religion; institutions; preferences; Economic growth

摘要

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. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.