IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rsocec/v72y2014i4p523-548.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Two Sides of a Medal: the Changing Relationship between Religious Diversity and Religiosity

Author

Listed:
  • Matthias Opfinger

Abstract

Religious Market Theory assigns basic market principles to the market for religion. The derived supply-side model proposes that religiosity is higher on a competitive market, characterized by high religious diversity. Churches will provide higher quality goods compared to monopolistic churches. The demand-side model, originating from the Secularization Hypothesis, suggests that the establishment of new churches casts doubt on the existing religion, which reduces overall religiosity. I find a negative linear relationship between religious diversity and religiosity which supports the demand-side model. However, high levels of income and democracy mitigate this effect. For high levels of education and immigration, the relationship even turns to positive. The demand-side model seems to dominate in less-developed countries. This effect appears to vanish in the most industrialized countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Opfinger, 2014. "Two Sides of a Medal: the Changing Relationship between Religious Diversity and Religiosity," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 72(4), pages 523-548, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rsocec:v:72:y:2014:i:4:p:523-548
    DOI: 10.1080/00346764.2014.958900
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00346764.2014.958900
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00346764.2014.958900?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Harttgen & Matthias Opfinger, 2014. "National Identity and Religious Diversity," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(3), pages 346-367, August.
    2. Ronen Bar-El & Teresa García-Muñoz & Shoshana Neuman & Yossef Tobol, 2013. "The evolution of secularization: cultural transmission, religion and fertility—theory, simulations and evidence," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1129-1174, July.
    3. Hanson, Gordon H. & Xiang, Chong, 2013. "Exporting Christianity: Governance and doctrine in the globalization of US denominations," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 301-320.
    4. Gruber Jonathan H, 2005. "Religious Market Structure, Religious Participation, and Outcomes: Is Religion Good for You?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-32, September.
    5. Rachel M. McCleary & Robert J. Barro, 2006. "Religion and Economy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 49-72, Spring.
    6. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    7. McCleary, Rachel & Barro, Robert, 2002. "Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel," Scholarly Articles 3221170, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    8. Jonathan Gruber, 2005. "Religious Market Structure, Religious Participation, and Outcomes: Is Religion Good for You?," NBER Working Papers 11377, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Lydia Maidl & Ann-Kathrin Seemann & Eckhard Frick & Harald Gündel & Piret Paal, 2022. "Leveraging Spirituality and Religion in European For-profit-organizations: a Systematic Review," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 23-53, April.
    2. Matthias Opfinger, 2014. "‘United in Diversity’---Does Social Diversity Increase Subjective?," Research Papers in Economics 2014-10, University of Trier, Department of Economics.

    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. Sriya Iyer, 2016. "The New Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 395-441, June.
    2. Miles S. Kimball & Colter M. Mitchell & Arland D. Thornton & Linda C. Young-Demarco, 2009. "Empirics on the Origins of Preferences: The Case of College Major and Religiosity," NBER Working Papers 15182, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lozano, Fernando A., 2012. "What Happened to God's Time? The Evolution of Secularism and Hours of Work in America, Evidence from Religious Holidays," IZA Discussion Papers 6552, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Miao, Shuchao & Chi, Jing & Liao, Jing & Qian, Long, 2021. "How does religious belief promote farmer entrepreneurship in rural China?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 95-104.
    5. Carlos Miguel Lemos & Ross Joseph Gore & Ivan Puga-Gonzalez & F LeRon Shults, 2019. "Dimensionality and factorial invariance of religiosity among Christians and the religiously unaffiliated: A cross-cultural analysis based on the International Social Survey Programme," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-36, May.
    6. Xu, Xixiong & Li, Yaoqin & Liu, Xing & Gan, Weiyu, 2017. "Does religion matter to corruption? Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 34-49.
    7. Hungerman, Daniel M., 2014. "The effect of education on religion: Evidence from compulsory schooling laws," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 52-63.
    8. Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, 2019. "Acts of God? Religiosity and Natural Disasters Across Subnational World Districts," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(622), pages 2295-2321.
    9. Kagin, Justin D. & Lybbert, Travis J., 2023. "Religiosity and educational attainment among the Roma: Shedding an oppositional identity?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    10. Fernando A. Lozano, 2017. "The rise of secularism and its economic consequences," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 384-384, September.
    11. L. Bettendorf & E. Dijkgraaf, 2008. "Religion and Income," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-014/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    12. Andrew E. Clark & Orsolya Lelkes, 2005. "Deliver us from evil: religion as insurance," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590570, HAL.
    13. Spenkuch, Jörg L., 2017. "Religion and work: Micro evidence from contemporary Germany," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 193-214.
    14. 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.
    15. Robert J. Barro & Jason Hwang, 2007. "Religious Conversion in 40 Countries," NBER Working Papers 13689, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Yang, Yang & Zhang, Cheng & Yan, Yu, 2019. "Does religious faith affect household financial market participation? Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 42-50.
    17. Nunziata, Luca & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2014. "The Protestant Ethic and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Religious Minorities from the Former Holy Roman Empire," MPRA Paper 53566, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Teemu Lyytikäinen & Torsten Santavirta, 2013. "The effect of church tax on church membership," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1175-1193, July.
    19. Hornung, Erik & Schwerdt, Guido & Strazzeri, Maurizio, 2023. "Religious practice and student performance: Evidence from Ramadan fasting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 100-119.
    20. Dong, Jie & Ren, Yanjun & Glauben, Thomas, 2024. "Gospel or curse: The impact of religious beliefs on energy poverty in rural China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 11.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

    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:taf:rsocec:v:72:y:2014:i:4:p:523-548. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RRSE20 .

    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.