IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v36y2024i4p480-501.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A strategic model of polytheism

Author

Listed:
  • Laurent Gauthier

Abstract

We consider a formal model of polytheistic religion, where worshippers choose gods to address, and expect benefits in return. At the game-theoretic equilibrium, they choose gods optimally depending on how the gods return favors, as a function of divine efficiency. This efficiency can be modeled based on a random growth model of prayer benefit, and results in worship acts following power laws. A reduction in the range of random events associated to the various divinities, or to their range of interpretations, leads to more concentration of worship towards less divinities.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurent Gauthier, 2024. "A strategic model of polytheism," Rationality and Society, , vol. 36(4), pages 480-501, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:36:y:2024:i:4:p:480-501
    DOI: 10.1177/10434631241269525
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10434631241269525
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/10434631241269525?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Iannaccone, Laurence R. & Haight, Colleen E. & Rubin, Jared, 2011. "Lessons from Delphi: Religious markets and spiritual capitals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 326-338, March.
    2. Gilat Levy & Ronny Razin, 2012. "Religious Beliefs, Religious Participation, and Cooperation," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 121-151, August.
    3. W. Brian Arthur, 1994. "Inductive Reasoning, Bounded Rationality and the Bar Problem," Working Papers 94-03-014, Santa Fe Institute.
    4. Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Power Laws in Economics: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 185-206, Winter.
    5. Arthur, W Brian, 1994. "Inductive Reasoning and Bounded Rationality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 406-411, May.
    6. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767.
    7. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1998. "Corrigenda [Introduction to the Economics of Religion]," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 1941-1941, December.
    8. Sriya Iyer, 2016. "The New Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 395-441, June.
    9. 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.
    10. Gilat Levy & Ronny Razin, 2014. "Rituals Or Good Works: Social Signaling In Religious Organizations," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(5), pages 1317-1360, October.
    11. Ronny Razin & Gilat Levy, 2007. "A Theory of Religion: Linking Individual Beliefs," 2007 Meeting Papers 19, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Michael McBride, 2016. "A rational choice theory of religious authority," Rationality and Society, , vol. 28(4), pages 410-438, November.
    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. Laurent Gauthier, 2025. "An empirical analysis of polytheism," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 797-818, April.

    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. Della Lena, Sebastiano & Manzoni, Elena & Panebianco, Fabrizio, 2023. "On the transmission of guilt aversion and the evolution of trust," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 765-793.
    2. Stergios Skaperdas & Samarth Vaidya, 2020. "Why did pre-modern states adopt Big-God religions?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 373-394, March.
    3. Marc Keuschnigg & Niclas Lovsjö & Peter Hedström, 2018. "Analytical sociology and computational social science," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 3-14, January.
    4. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Matteo Marsili & Jean-Pierre Nadal, 2023. "Application of spin glass ideas in social sciences, economics and finance," Papers 2306.16165, arXiv.org.
    5. Hong, Ji Yeon & Paik, Christopher, 2021. "Hate thy communist neighbor: Protestants and politics in South Korea," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 707-723.
    6. Jean-Paul Carvalho & Mark Koyama & Michael Sacks, 2017. "Education, identity, and community: lessons from Jewish emancipation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 119-143, April.
    7. Bukin, Kirill A. (Букин, Кирилл А.) & Levin, Mark I. (Левин, Марк И.), 2018. "Competition in the Regulated Religious Market [Конкуренция На Регулируемом Рынке Религиозных Услуг]," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 218-233, February.
    8. Maria Minniti & William Bygrave, 2001. "A Dynamic Model of Entrepreneurial Learning," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 25(3), pages 5-16, April.
    9. Bell, Peter N, 2013. "New Testing Procedures to Assess Market Efficiency with Trading Rules," MPRA Paper 46701, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Luis Alfonso Dau & Aya S. Chacar & Marjorie A. Lyles & Jiatao Li, 2022. "Informal institutions and international business: Toward an integrative research agenda," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(6), pages 985-1010, August.
    11. Chen, Zhimin & Ibragimov, Rustam, 2019. "One country, two systems? The heavy-tailedness of Chinese A- and H- share markets," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 115-141.
    12. Filippini, Massimo & Srinivasan, Suchita, 2019. "Impact of religious participation, social interactions and globalization on meat consumption: Evidence from India," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(S1).
    13. Giuseppe Pernagallo & Benedetto Torrisi, 2020. "A theory of information overload applied to perfectly efficient financial markets," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 14(2), pages 223-236, October.
    14. Sergeeva, Anastasia & Bhardwaj, Akhil & Dimov, Dimo, 2021. "In the heat of the game: Analogical abduction in a pragmatist account of entrepreneurial reasoning," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(6).
    15. Ciarli, Tommaso & Ràfols, Ismael, 2019. "The relation between research priorities and societal demands: The case of rice," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 949-967.
    16. Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding, 2021. "In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 541-583.
    17. Wawrzyniak, Karol & Wiślicki, Wojciech, 2012. "Mesoscopic approach to minority games in herd regime," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(5), pages 2056-2082.
    18. Scott C. Linn & Nicholas S. P. Tay, 2007. "Complexity and the Character of Stock Returns: Empirical Evidence and a Model of Asset Prices Based on Complex Investor Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(7), pages 1165-1180, July.
    19. Alan Kirman & François Laisney & Paul Pezanis-Christou, 2023. "Relaxing the symmetry assumption in participation games: a specification test for cluster-heterogeneity," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(4), pages 850-878, September.
    20. Augenblick, Ned & Cunha, Jesse M. & Dal Bó, Ernesto & Rao, Justin M., 2016. "The economics of faith: using an apocalyptic prophecy to elicit religious beliefs in the field," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 38-49.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:ratsoc:v:36:y:2024:i:4:p:480-501. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.