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Does religiosity promote property rights and the rule of law?

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  • BERGGREN, NICLAS
  • BJØRNSKOV, CHRISTIAN

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 measures of institutional quality.

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  • Berggren, Niclas & Bjã˜Rnskov, Christian, 2013. "Does religiosity promote property rights and the rule of law?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 161-185, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jinsec:v:9:y:2013:i:02:p:161-185_00
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    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 19:34:00
    2. Religion og udvikling
      by Christian Bjørnskov in Punditokraterne on 2013-11-08 15:47:08

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    JEL classification:

    • K11 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Property Law
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

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