IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v105y2009i1p58-60.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Religion and cooperation in a public goods experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Anderson, Lisa R.
  • Mellor, Jennifer M.

Abstract

We test whether religion affects adult subjects' decisions in a repeated public goods experiment. Contribution levels are not influenced by religious affiliation or participation. However, the decline with repetition is smaller among religious subjects, suggesting that religion may sustain cooperation.

Suggested Citation

  • Anderson, Lisa R. & Mellor, Jennifer M., 2009. "Religion and cooperation in a public goods experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 58-60, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:105:y:2009:i:1:p:58-60
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165-1765(09)00184-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McCleary, Rachel & Barro, Robert, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth across Countries," Scholarly Articles 3708464, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher & Bernhard von Rosenbladt & J�rgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, "undated". "A Nation-Wide Laboratory: Examining trust and trustworthiness by integrating behavioral experiments into representative surveys," IEW - Working Papers 141, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    3. Guiso, Luigi & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2003. "People's opium? Religion and economic attitudes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 225-282, January.
    4. Johansson-Stenman, Olof & Mahmud, Minhaj & Martinsson, Peter, 2005. "Trust and Religion: Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh," Working Papers in Economics 167, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    5. John Orbell & Marion Goldman & Matthew Mulford & Robyn Dawes, 1992. "Religion, Context, and Constraint toward Strangers," Rationality and Society, , vol. 4(3), pages 291-307, July.
    6. Ruffle Bradley J. & Sosis Richard, 2007. "Does It Pay To Pray? Costly Ritual and Cooperation," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-37, March.
    7. Tan, Jonathan H.W. & Vogel, Claudia, 2008. "Religion and trust: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 832-848, December.
    8. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 2003. "Rebate versus matching: does how we subsidize charitable contributions matter?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 681-701, March.
    9. Tan, Jonathan H.W., 2006. "Religion and social preferences: An experimental study," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 60-67, January.
    10. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2004. "Giving to Secular Causes by the Religious and Nonreligious: An Experimental Test of the Responsiveness of Giving to Subsidies," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-07, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    11. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1998. "Corrigenda [Introduction to the Economics of Religion]," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 1941-1941, December.
    12. Robert J. Barro & Rachel McCleary, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 9682, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1998. "Introduction to the Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1465-1495, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robert Hoffmann, 2013. "The Experimental Economics Of Religion," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 813-845, December.
    2. Lasha Lanchava, 2014. "Does Religious Activity Affect Childbearing Decisions? The Case of Georgia," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp521, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    3. Chuah, Swee Hoon & Feeny, Simon & Hoffmann, Robert & Sanjaya, Muhammad Ryan, 2019. "Conflict, ethnicity and gender: A money-burning field experiment in Indonesia," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 14-17.
    4. Sriya Iyer, 2016. "The New Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 395-441, June.
    5. Feldhaus, Christoph & Gleue, Marvin & Löschel, Andreas, 2022. "Can a Catholic institution promote sustainable behavior? Field experimental evidence on donations for climate protection," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    6. Arbel, Yuval & Bar-El, Ronen & Schwarz, Mordechai E. & Tobol, Yossef, 2014. "Voluntary Contributions to the Establishment and Operation of Public Goods: Theory and Experimental Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 8532, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Pablo Brañas-Garza & Antonio M Espín & Shoshana Neuman, 2014. "Religious Pro-Sociality? Experimental Evidence from a Sample of 766 Spaniards," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-11, August.
    8. Christie, Angelina N., 2019. "On religion, lying, and social preferences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 161-164.
    9. Chuah, Swee Hoon & Gächter, Simon & Hoffmann, Robert & Tan, Jonathan H.W., 2016. "Religion, discrimination and trust across three cultures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 280-301.
    10. Ali Ahmed & Mats Hammarstedt, 2011. "The effect of subtle religious representations on cooperation," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(11), pages 900-910, September.
    11. Ma, Xunzhou & Wu, Zhen-Xing, 2019. "Do sacred texts glorifying Allah facilitate Muslims’ trust and trustworthiness? Evidence from field experiments in China," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    12. Rosenbaum, Stephen Mark & Billinger, Stephan & Stieglitz, Nils, 2014. "Let’s be honest: A review of experimental evidence of honesty and truth-telling," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 181-196.
    13. Arbel, Yuval & Bar-El, Ronen & Tobol, Yossef, 2016. "Fundraising to a real-life public good – evidence from the laboratory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 27-37.
    14. Neuman, Shoshana & Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Espin, Antonio M., 2013. "Effects of religiosity on social behaviour: Experimental evidence from a representative sample of Spaniards," CEPR Discussion Papers 9709, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Akay, Alpaslan & Karabulut, Gökhan & Martinsson, Peter, 2015. "Cooperation and punishment: The effect of religiosity and religious festival," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 43-46.
    16. Chuah, Swee Hoon & Gächter, Simon & Hoffmann, Robert & Tan, Jonathan H. W., 2015. "Religion, Discrimination and Trust," IZA Discussion Papers 9616, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Chuah, Swee-Hoon & Hoffmann, Robert & Ramasamy, Bala & Tan, Jonathan H.W., 2014. "Religion, ethnicity and cooperation: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 33-43.
    18. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Bucheli, Marisa & Espinosa, María Paz, 2020. "Altruism and information," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    19. Basedau, Matthias & Gobien, Simone & Prediger, Sebastian, 2017. "The Ambivalent Role of Religion for Sustainable Development: A Review of the Empirical Evidence," GIGA Working Papers 297, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    20. Weiwei Xia & Xiaohan Guo & Jun Luo & Hang Ye & Yefeng Chen & Shu Chen & Weisen Xia, 2023. "Religious affiliations of Chinese people and prosocial behavior: evidence from field experiments," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 27(3), pages 473-504, September.
    21. Abu Siddique, 2021. "Behavioral Consequences of Religious Education," Munich Papers in Political Economy 10, Munich School of Politics and Public Policy and the School of Management at the Technical University of Munich.
    22. Jipeng Zhang & Elizabeth Brown & Huan Xie, 2019. "The Effect of Religious Priming in Pro-social and Destructive Behavior," CIRANO Working Papers 2019s-06, CIRANO.
    23. Jonathan Oxley, 2020. "Examining Donor Preference for Charity Religious Affiliation," Working Papers wp2020_01_01, Department of Economics, Florida State University.
    24. H'MADOUN, Maryam, 2011. "Afraid of God or afraid of man: How religion shapes attitudes toward free riding and fraud," Working Papers 2011008, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    25. Akay, Alpaslan & Karabulut, Gökhan & Martinsson, Peter, 2011. "The Effect of Religion on Cooperation and Altruistic Punishment: Experimental Evidence from Public Goods Experiments," IZA Discussion Papers 6179, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lisa Anderson & Jennifer Mellor & Jeffrey Milyo, 2010. "Did the Devil Make Them Do It? The Effects of Religion in Public Goods and Trust Games," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 163-175, May.
    2. Robert Hoffmann, 2013. "The Experimental Economics Of Religion," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 813-845, December.
    3. Robert Hoffmann, 2013. "The Experimental Economics Of Religion," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 813-845, December.
    4. Juan José Barrios & Nestor Gandelman, 2011. "Religion, trust and reciprocity: evidence from six Latin American cities," Documentos de Investigación 69, Universidad ORT Uruguay. Facultad de Administración y Ciencias Sociales.
    5. Tan, Jonathan H.W. & Vogel, Claudia, 2008. "Religion and trust: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 832-848, December.
    6. Jeffrey Milyo & Jennifer M. Mellor & Lisa Anderson, 2005. "Did the Devil Make Them Do It? The Effects of Religion and Religiosity in Public Goods and Trust Games," Working Papers 0512, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    7. Chen, Kang & Tang, Fang-Fang, 2009. "Cultural differences between Tibetans and ethnic Han Chinese in ultimatum bargaining experiments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 78-84, March.
    8. Kirchmaier, Isadora & Prüfer, Jens & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2018. "Religion, moral attitudes and economic behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 282-300.
    9. Kirchmaier, Isadora & Prüfer, Jens & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2018. "Religion, moral attitudes & economic behavior," Other publications TiSEM 669f51df-0d23-4657-8b16-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. Matthias Basedau & Simone Gobien & Sebastian Prediger, 2018. "The Multidimensional Effects Of Religion On Socioeconomic Development: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 1106-1133, September.
    11. Chuah, Swee Hoon & Gächter, Simon & Hoffmann, Robert & Tan, Jonathan H. W., 2015. "Religion, Discrimination and Trust," IZA Discussion Papers 9616, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Chuah, Swee Hoon & Gächter, Simon & Hoffmann, Robert & Tan, Jonathan H.W., 2016. "Religion, discrimination and trust across three cultures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 280-301.
    13. Gilat Levy & Ronnie Razin, 2009. "Religious Organizations," STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series 544, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    14. Baele, Lieven & Farooq, Moazzam & Ongena, Steven, 2014. "Of religion and redemption: Evidence from default on Islamic loans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 141-159.
    15. van Hoorn, André & Maseland, Robbert, 2013. "Does a Protestant work ethic exist? Evidence from the well-being effect of unemployment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 1-12.
    16. Dehejia, Rajeev & DeLeire, Thomas & Luttmer, Erzo F.P., 2007. "Insuring consumption and happiness through religious organizations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 259-279, February.
    17. Nurrachmi, Rininta, 2016. "Religion and Economic Performance," MPRA Paper 85582, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2018.
    18. Rietveld, C.A. & van Burg, E., 2013. "Religious beliefs and entrepreneurship among Dutch protestants," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2013-015-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    19. Bettendorf, L. & Dijkgraaf, E., 2010. "Religion and income: Heterogeneity between countries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(1-2), pages 12-29, May.
    20. Baele, L. & Farooq, M. & Ongena, S., 2012. "Of Religion and Redemption : Evidence from Default on Islamic Loans (Replaces CentER DP 2010-136)," Other publications TiSEM 44a4a19c-3959-4e99-b96b-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Religion Public goods experiment;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:105:y:2009:i:1:p:58-60. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.