IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/fosoec/v49y2020i4p392-401.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Was Adam Smith Right About Religious Competition?

Author

Listed:
  • Peter J. Boettke
  • Joshua C. Hall
  • Kathleen M. Sheehan

Abstract

Adam Smith famously argued that increased competition in religion would result in more religious tolerance and that the benefits of competition in the marketplace would also be seen in religious instruction when many religious sects are tolerated. We use a cross-section of a maximum of 167 countries to explore whether increased religious competition results in less governmental regulation of religion and less governmental favoritism of religion. Our measure of religious regulation and favoritism comes from the Association of Religion Data Archives. Our empirical analysis also explores the influence of economic and political factors, including the size of the economy, openness of trade, legal origins, education, the amount of checks and balances on the government, and the role of democracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter J. Boettke & Joshua C. Hall & Kathleen M. Sheehan, 2020. "Was Adam Smith Right About Religious Competition?," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(4), pages 392-401, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:fosoec:v:49:y:2020:i:4:p:392-401
    DOI: 10.1080/07360932.2015.1133440
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/07360932.2015.1133440
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/07360932.2015.1133440?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson, Gary M, 1988. "Mr. Smith and the Preachers: The Economics of Religion in the Wealth of Nations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(5), pages 1066-1088, October.
    2. Gary M. Anderson and Robert U. Tollison, 1992. "Morality and Monopoly: The Constitutional Political Economy of Religious Rules," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 12(2), pages 373-392, Fall.
    3. Keefer, Philip & Stasavage, David, 2003. "The Limits of Delegation: Veto Players, Central Bank Independence, and the Credibility of Monetary Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(3), pages 407-423, August.
    4. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1991. "The Consequences of Religious Market Structure," Rationality and Society, , vol. 3(2), pages 156-177, 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. Sriya Iyer, 2022. "Religion and Discrimination: A Review Essay of Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 256-278, March.

    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. Berggren, Niclas, 1997. "Rhetoric or reality? An economic analysis of the effects of religion in Sweden," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 571-596.
    2. Torgler, Benno, 2006. "The importance of faith: Tax morale and religiosity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 81-109, September.
    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. Mohammad Tariq Al Fozaie, 2023. "Behavior, religion, and socio-economic development: a synthesized theoretical framework," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Petach, Luke, 2024. "Monopsony in the market for religion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 423-435.
    6. Esa Mangeloja, 2004. "Economic Growth and Religious Production Efficiency," DEGIT Conference Papers c009_040, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    7. Ian Smith & John Sawkins, 2003. "The economics of regional variation in religious attendance," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(14), pages 1577-1588.
    8. Esa Mangeloja, 2004. "Interrelationship of economic growth and regional religious properties," ERSA conference papers ersa04p94, European Regional Science Association.
    9. Rupasingha, Anil & Chilton, John b., 2009. "Religious adherence and county economic growth in the US," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 438-450, October.
    10. Joshua J. Lewer & Hendrik Van den Berg, 2007. "Religion and International Trade: Does the Sharing of a Religious Culture Facilitate the Formation of Trade Networks?," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(4), pages 765-794, October.
    11. Christopher Bailey & Jason Taylor, 2009. "A concentration index for differentiated products: the case of religious competition," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(14), pages 1745-1759.
    12. Daniela Andreini & Diego Rinallo & Giuseppe Pedeliento & Mara Bergamaschi, 2017. "Brands and Religion in the Secularized Marketplace and Workplace: Insights from the Case of an Italian Hospital Renamed After a Roman Catholic Pope," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 529-550, March.
    13. Elżbieta Bednarek-Sekunda & Richard Jong-A-Pin & Jakob de Haan, 2010. "The European Economic and Monetary Union and Labour Market Reform," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(1), pages 3-27, March.
    14. Jamus Jerome Lim, 2021. "The limits of central bank independence for inflation performance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 309-335, March.
    15. Schnakenberg, Keith & Turner, Ian R & Uribe-McGuire, Alicia, 2021. "Allies or Commitment Devices? A Model of Appointments to the Federal Reserve," SocArXiv b5zts, Center for Open Science.
    16. Cosgel, Metin & Miceli, Thomas J., 2009. "State and religion," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 402-416, September.
    17. Syed Nisar Hussain Hamdani & Eatzaz Ahmad & Mahmood Khalid, 2004. "Study of Philanthropic Behaviour in Divine Economics Framework," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 43(4), pages 875-894.
    18. Justin Callais & Andrew T. Young, 2021. "Does constitutional entrenchment matter for economic freedom?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(4), pages 808-830, October.
    19. Masciandaro, Donato, 2022. "Independence, conservatism, and beyond: Monetary policy, central bank governance and central banker preferences (1981–2021)," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    20. Carlos Scartascini & Mariano Tommasi & Ernesto Stein, 2010. "Veto Players and Policy Trade-Offs- An Intertemporal Approach to Study the Effects of Political Institutions on Policy," Research Department Publications 4660, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

    More about this item

    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:taf:fosoec:v:49:y:2020:i:4:p:392-401. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFSE20 .

    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.