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The Cult of Theoi: Economic Uncertainty and Religion

Author

Listed:
  • Frijters, Paul

    (London School of Economics)

  • Barón, Juan D.

    (World Bank)

Abstract

Sacrifices to deities occur in nearly all known religions. In this paper, we report on our attempts to elicit this type of religious behaviour towards "Theoi" in the laboratory. The theory we test is that, when faced with uncertainty, individuals attempt to engage in a reciprocal contract with the source of uncertainty by sacrificing towards it. In our experiments, we create the situation whereby individuals face an uncertain economic payback due to "Theoi" and we allow participants to sacrifice towards this entity. Aggregate sacrifices amongst participants are over 30% of all takings, increase with the level of humanistic labelling of Theoi and decrease when participants share information or when the level of uncertainty is lower. The findings imply that under circumstances of high uncertainty people are willing to sacrifice large portions of their income even when this has no discernable effect on outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Frijters, Paul & Barón, Juan D., 2010. "The Cult of Theoi: Economic Uncertainty and Religion," IZA Discussion Papers 4902, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4902
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    1. Religious sacrifices in the lab
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2010-06-04 20:59:00

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    sacrifice; religion; uncertainty; experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

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