IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v105y2023i1p54-69.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sinning in the Rain: Weather Shocks, Church Attendance, and Crime

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Moreno-Medina

    (University of Texas at San Antonio)

Abstract

This paper provides evidence of the causal effect of church attendance on petty crime by using quasi-random variation in the number of Sundays when it precipitated at the specific time of most religious services. Using a novel strategy, I find a narrow time window when most individuals attend church. Based on a panel between 1980 and 2016, I find that one more Sunday with precipitation at the time of church increases yearly drug-related, alcohol-related, and white-collar crimes. I do not find an effect for violent or property crimes. These effects are driven by more religious counties. Previous evidence showing negative effects of church attendance on the demand for alcohol and drugs is consistent with a demand-driven interpretation of the results presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Moreno-Medina, 2023. "Sinning in the Rain: Weather Shocks, Church Attendance, and Crime," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(1), pages 54-69, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:105:y:2023:i:1:p:54-69
    DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01024
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/rest_a_01024?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 search for a different version of it.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Wang-Sheng Lee & Umair Khalil & David Johnston, 2024. "Religiosity and Crime: Evidence from a City-Wide Shock," Papers 2024-08, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University.

    More about this item

    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:tpr:restat:v:105:y:2023:i:1:p:54-69. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.