Divine Policy: The Impact of Religion in GovernmentIndian Rupee

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding; Pizzigolotto, Alessandro; Sperling, Lena Lindbjerg
• 署名单位: University of Copenhagen
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20240018
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: SOCIAL DESIRABILITY; charitable choice; church; welfare; WILL; congregations; polarization; advantage; movements; ECONOMICS

摘要

Can policies shape personal values and beliefs? To examine, we exploit the staggered introduction of faith-based initiatives across US states. Our difference-in-differences analysis reveals that the initiatives strengthened religiosity and conservative-religious social views, such as attitudes against homosexuals. The evidence points to causal effects; we find no systematic differences prior to implementation, the results are robust to restricting comparison to contiguous counties and to conducting triple-differences estimation exploiting treatment heterogeneity. A key explanation, in line with standard models of religion and supported by data on nonprofit organizations, is that the initiatives facilitated the establishment of faith-based organizations. (JEL D72, L31, Z12, Z13)