IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hrv/faseco/3710663.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Which Countries Have State Religions?

Author

Listed:
  • McCleary, Rachel
  • Barro, Robert

Abstract

Among 188 countries, 72 had no state religion in 2000, 1970, and 1900; 58 had a state religion throughout; and 58 had 1 or 2 transitions. We use a Hotelling spatial competition model to analyze the likelihood that the religion market would be monopolized. Similar forces influence a government’s decision to establish a state religion. Consistent with the model, the probability of state religion in 1970 and 2000 is increasing with the adherence rate to the main religion, has a nonlinear relation with population, and has little relation with per capita GDP. The probability of state religion decreases sharply under Communism, but lagged Communism has only a weak effect. With costly adjustment for institutions, the probability of state religion in 1970 or 2000 depends substantially on the status in 1900. This persistence is much stronger for countries with no major regime change than for countries with such a change.

Suggested Citation

  • McCleary, Rachel & Barro, Robert, 2005. "Which Countries Have State Religions?," Scholarly Articles 3710663, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:3710663
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3710663/Barro_WhichCountries.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McCleary, Rachel & Barro, Robert, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth across Countries," Scholarly Articles 3708464, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    2. repec:reg:rpubli:274 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Olds, Kelly, 1994. "Privatizing the Church: Disestablishment in Connecticut and Massachusetts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(2), pages 277-297, April.
    4. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
    5. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    6. Casey B. Mulligan & Ricard Gil & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2004. "Do Democracies Have Different Public Policies than Nondemocracies?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 51-74, Winter.
    7. Rachel M. McCleary & Robert J. Barro, 2006. "Religion and Economy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 49-72, Spring.
    8. Robert J. Barro & Rachel McCleary, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 9682, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Mulligan, Casey B. & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "Population and Regulation," Working Papers 190, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    10. Robert J. Barro, 1999. "Determinants of Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 158-183, December.
    11. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    12. Kornai, Janos, 1992. "The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198287766.
    13. Robert Barro & Rachel M. McCleary, 2003. "International Determinants of Religiosity," NBER Working Papers 10147, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Casey B. Mulligan & Andrei Shleifer, 2005. "The Extent of the Market and the Supply of Regulation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 120(4), pages 1445-1473.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. D’Amico, Daniel J. & Williamson, Claudia, 2015. "Do legal origins affect cross-country incarceration rates?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 595-612.
    2. Robbert Maseland & André Hoorn, 2011. "Why Muslims like democracy yet have so little of it," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 481-496, June.
    3. Elgin, Ceyhun & Goksel, Turkmen & Gurdal, Mehmet Y. & Orman, Cuneyt, 2013. "Religion, income inequality, and the size of the government," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 225-234.
    4. Edward Glaeser & Giacomo Ponzetto & Andrei Shleifer, 2007. "Why does democracy need education?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 77-99, June.
    5. MICHAEL McBRIDE, 2010. "Religious Market Competition in a Richer World," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(305), pages 148-171, January.
    6. Tausch, Arno, 2018. "The return of religious Antisemitism? The evidence from World Values Survey data," MPRA Paper 90093, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Tausch, Arno, 2018. "Africa on the maps of global values. Comparative analyses, based on recent World Values Survey data," MPRA Paper 87966, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Xingqiang Du, 2014. "Does Religion Mitigate Tunneling? Evidence from Chinese Buddhism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 299-327, December.
    9. Oyèkọ́lá, Ọláyínká, 2021. "Where do people live longer?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 21-44.
    10. Ji, Yaling, 2020. "Religiosity and the adoption of formal financial services," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 378-396.
    11. Tausch, Arno, 2016. "Global Catholicism in the age of mass migration and the rise of populism: comparative analyses, based on recent World Values Survey and European Social Survey data," MPRA Paper 75243, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Breuer, Janice Boucher & McDermott, John, 2013. "Respect, responsibility, and development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 36-47.
    13. Chen, Hanwen & Huang, Henry He & Lobo, Gerald J. & Wang, Chong, 2016. "Religiosity and the cost of debt," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 70-85.
    14. Kiridaran Kanagaretnam & Gerald Lobo & Chong Wang, 2015. "Religiosity and Earnings Management: International Evidence from the Banking Industry," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(2), pages 277-296, December.
    15. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2009. "Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 88-126, July.
    16. Baele, Lieven & Farooq, Moazzam & Ongena, Steven, 2014. "Of religion and redemption: Evidence from default on Islamic loans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 141-159.
    17. Becker, Sascha O. & Pfaff, Steven & Rubin, Jared, 2016. "Causes and consequences of the Protestant Reformation," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-25.
    18. Benjamin Jung, 2009. "Adjustment Dynamics of Bilateral Trade Flows: Theory and Evidence," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 145(IV), pages 421-442, December.
    19. Thomas Barnebeck Andersen & Jeanet Bentzen & Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Paul Sharp, 2010. "Religious Orders and Growth through Cultural Change in Pre-Industrial England," DEGIT Conference Papers c015_036, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    20. van Hoorn, André & Maseland, Robbert, 2013. "Does a Protestant work ethic exist? Evidence from the well-being effect of unemployment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 1-12.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    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:hrv:faseco:3710663. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deharus.html .

    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: Office for Scholarly Communication (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deharus.html .

    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.