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Political campaigns and church contributions

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  • Hungerman, Daniel
  • Rinz, Kevin
  • Weninger, Tim
  • Yoon, Chungeun

Abstract

We combine a new dataset of weekly Catholic church donations with a new dataset of presidential-election campaign stops to explore the impact of stops on donations. We find that stops increase donations, with a campaign stop generating 2 percent more donations in the following week. Our results suggest that this effect is of short duration. Using a well-known list of politically-motivated words, we find that this effect does not appear to vary based on the political language used by the parish. Our results underscore the contemporary political dimension of US religiosity and the elemental relationship between religious and political events more generally.

Suggested Citation

  • Hungerman, Daniel & Rinz, Kevin & Weninger, Tim & Yoon, Chungeun, 2018. "Political campaigns and church contributions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 403-426.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:155:y:2018:i:c:p:403-426
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.09.011
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    Cited by:

    1. Sarah Brown & Karl Taylor, 2019. "Charitable Behaviour and Political Ideology: Evidence for the UK," Working Papers 2019002, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    2. Pinar Yildirim & Andrei Simonov & Maria Petrova & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2024. "Are Political and Charitable Giving Substitutes? Evidence from the United States," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(11), pages 8030-8043, November.
    3. Gordon B. Dahl & Runjing Lu & William Mullins, 2022. "Partisan Fertility and Presidential Elections," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 473-490, December.
    4. Julia Cagé & Malka Guillot, 2021. "Is Charitable Giving Political? Evidence from Wealth and Income Tax Returns," Working Papers hal-03877993, HAL.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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