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Does Religiosity Promote Property Rights and the Rule of Law?

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  • Berggren, Niclas

    () (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN))

  • Bjørnskov, Christian

    () (Aarhus University)

Abstract

Social and cultural determinants of economic institutions and outcomes have come to the forefront of economic research. We introduce religiosity, measured as the share for which religion is important in daily life, to explain institutional quality in the form of property rights and the rule of law. Previous studies have only measured the impact of membership shares of different religions, with mixed results. We find, in a cross-country regression analysis comprising up to 112 countries, that religiosity is negatively related to our institutional outcome variables. This only holds in democracies (not autocracies), which suggests that religiosity affects the way institutions work through the political process. Individual religions are not related to our measure of institutional quality.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Research Institute of Industrial Economics in its series Working Paper Series with number 905.

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Length: 27 pages
Date of creation: 06 Mar 2012
Date of revision:
Publication status: Published as Berggren, Niclas and Christian Bjørnskov, 'Does Religiosity Promote Property Rights and the Rule of Law?' in Journal of Institutional Economics, 2013, pages 161-185.
Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0905

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Keywords: Religion; Religiosity; Rule of law; Property rights; Institutions;

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References

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  1. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-79, April.
  2. Berggren, Niclas & Bjørnskov, Christian, 2009. "Is the Importance of Religion in Daily Life Related to Social Trust? Cross-Country and Cross-State Comparisons," Ratio Working Papers 142, The Ratio Institute.
  3. Robert J. Barro & Rachel M. McCleary, 2004. "Which Countries Have State Religions?," NBER Working Papers 10438, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Ross Levine, 2005. "Law, Endowments, and Property Rights," NBER Working Papers 11502, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Berggren, Niclas, 1997. "Rhetoric or reality? An economic analysis of the effects of religion in Sweden," The Journal of Socio-Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 571-596.
  6. Philippe Aghion & Alberto Alesina & Francesco Trebbi, 2002. "Endogenous Political Institutions," NBER Working Papers 9006, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2008. "The growth-inequality association: Government ideology matters," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 300-308, October.
  8. Ayyagari, Meghana & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2005. "How well do institutional theories explain firms'perceptions of property rights?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3709, The World Bank.
  9. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson & Daniel M. Sturm, 2010. "Political Competition, Policy and Growth: Theory and Evidence from the US," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 1329-1352, October.
  10. Berggren, Niclas & Jordahl, Henrik, 2003. "Does Free Trade Really Reduce Growth? Further Testing Using the Economic Freedom Index," Working Paper Series 2003:26, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
  11. Rachel M. McCleary & Robert J. Barro, 2006. "Religion and Economy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 49-72, Spring.
  12. Heaton, Paul, 2006. "Does Religion Really Reduce Crime?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(1), pages 147-72, April.
  13. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1998. "Introduction to the Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1465-1495, September.
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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Religion and the quality of public institutions
    by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-03-23 14:34:00

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