IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/962.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Deus Economicus

Author

Listed:
  • Oslington, Paul

Abstract

In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in religion among economists, but the content of religion has so far been neglected . This paper builds a rational choice model of divine action, in particular of the structure of the divine offer of salvation and rational human response. It considers why God might not save everyone, the pattern of salvation across individuals with different preferences and endowments, and the way religious conversion and revivals are often large and sudden changes. Rational choice analysis to divine human interactions is a contribution to the renewal interdisciplinary conversation between economists and religion scholars.

Suggested Citation

  • Oslington, Paul, 2005. "Deus Economicus," MPRA Paper 962, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:962
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/962/1/MPRA_paper_962.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert B. Ekelund, Jr. & Robert F. Hebert & Robert D. Tollison, 2002. "An Economic Analysis of the Protestant Reformation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 646-671, June.
    2. Pedro Pita Barros & Nuno Garoupa, 2002. "An Economic Theory Of Church Strictness," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 559-576, July.
    3. Paul Oslington (ed.), 2003. "Economics and Religion," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 2564.
    4. Robert W. Fogel, 1999. "Catching Up with the Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 1-21, March.
    5. Montgomery, James D, 1996. "Contemplations on the Economic Approach to Religious Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 443-447, May.
    6. Azzi, Corry & Ehrenberg, Ronald G, 1975. "Household Allocation of Time and Church Attendance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(1), pages 27-56, February.
    7. Iannaccone, Laurence R, 1992. "Sacrifice and Stigma: Reducing Free-Riding in Cults, Communes, and Other Collectives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(2), pages 271-291, April.
    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. Mario Ferrero & George Tridimas, 2018. "Divine Competition in Greco–Roman Polytheism," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 143-166, September.
    2. Atin Basuchoudhary & Mario Ferrero & Timothy Lubin, 2020. "The Political Economy of Polytheism: the Indian Versus the Greco-Roman Religions," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 183-211, December.

    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. Marek Loužek, 2007. "Ekonomie náboženství - je hypotéza sekularizace opodstatněná? [Economics of religion - is the secularization hypothesis tenable?]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2007(5), pages 659-680.
    3. Pavol Minárik, 2013. "Ekonomie náboženství a její relevance pro ekonomy ve střední Evropě [Economics of Religion and its Relevance for Economists in Central Europe]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2013(5), pages 691-704.
    4. Janine Höhener & Christoph A. Schaltegger, 2012. "Religionsökonomie: eine Übersicht," CREMA Working Paper Series 2012-08, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    5. Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2010. "The invisible hand plays dice: multiple equilibria in sects markets," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 483-502, December.
    6. Permani, Risti, 2011. "The presence of religious organisations, religious attendance and earnings: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 247-258, May.
    7. Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2004. "The Invisible Hand Plays Dice: Eventualities in Religious Markets," Others 0406005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Benito Arrunada, "undated". "Catholic Confessions of Sin as Third Party Moral Enforcement," Gruter Institute Working Papers on Law, Economics, and Evolutionary Biology 3-1-1013, Berkeley Electronic Press.
    9. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce I. Sacerdote, 2008. "Education and Religion," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(2), pages 188-215.
    10. Carvalho, Jean-Paul & Koyama, Mark, 2016. "Jewish emancipation and schism: Economic development and religious change," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 562-584.
    11. Prosper Raynold, 2013. "Fellowship, social network externalities, and management of religious risk," Rationality and Society, , vol. 25(2), pages 229-260, May.
    12. Pedro Pita Barros & Nuno Garoupa, 2002. "An Economic Theory Of Church Strictness," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 559-576, July.
    13. Simon Fan, C., 2008. "Religious participation and children's education: A social capital approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 303-317, February.
    14. Benito Arruñada, 2003. "Specialization and rent-seeking in moral enforcement: The case of confession," Economics Working Papers 653, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2009.
    15. Mario Ferrero, 2014. "Competition Between Exclusive Religions: The Counter-Reformation As Entry Deterrence," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(3), pages 280-303, July.
    16. Pavol Minarik, 2018. "An economic model of religious organization under oppressive regulation," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 289-302, July.
    17. Ferrero, Mario, 2008. "The triumph of Christianity in the Roman empire: An economic interpretation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 73-87, March.
    18. Paul Frijters & Juan D. Barón, 2012. "The Cult of Theoi: Economic Uncertainty and Religion," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(s1), pages 116-136, June.
    19. Esa Mangeloja, 2003. "Application of Economic Concepts on Religious Behavior," Others 0310003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Pavol Minarik, 2022. "The persistence of opposition in an oppressive regime: The case of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia," Rationality and Society, , vol. 34(2), pages 218-236, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rational Choice; Economics of Religion; Divine Action;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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:pra:mprapa:962. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.