A new paper from the NBER by Robert Barro (Harvard) and Rachel McCleary (Harvard) entitled "International Determinants of Religiousity". It's an empirical paper that seems to address the effects of pluralism and the presence of state religions on religiosity. This might be interested to some of the people interested in the interesection of state and church issues.
Their findings look fascinating - even if they do contradict my own predictions about religious markets and the effect of competition on driving religious participation. They find, for instance, that overall economic development (represented by the per capita GDP) tended to reduce religiosity, and because of instrumental variables used, they say that this relationship is more than likely causation, from growth driving down religious participation, rather than the other way around. Secondly, the presence of an official state religion tended to increase religiosity. Both of these seem to support the secularization thesis, as opposed to the opposing "religious market" theory.
But, in support of the religious market theory, there were some findings that are also interested - even though some of them are somewhat obvious. For instance, religiosity falls with government regulation of the relgion market, Communist suppression, and a reduction in religious pluralism. And, even though religosity fell in response to economic development, the interaction varied depending on the dimension of development. For instance, religiosity is positively related to education and the presence of children, but negatively related to urbanization.
As I mentioned, this seems more to support the secularization thesis than it does the religion market model. I look forward to reading the whole thing.
Posted by scott at December 12, 2003 04:43 PM | TrackBack