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Political Campaigns and Church Contributions

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel M. Hungerman
  • Kevin Rinz
  • Tim Weninger
  • Chungeun Yoon

Abstract

We combine a new dataset of weekly Catholic church donations with a new dataset of presidential-election campaign stops to explore the impact of stops on donations. We find that stops increase donations, with a campaign stop generating 2 percent more donations in the following week. Our results suggest that this effect is of short duration. Further, it does not appear to vary based on the political language used by the parish in its own church bulletins. However, the effect does appear to vary based on the religiosity of the candidates themselves, with Catholic candidates generating the largest increases.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel M. Hungerman & Kevin Rinz & Tim Weninger & Chungeun Yoon, 2018. "Political Campaigns and Church Contributions," NBER Working Papers 24374, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24374
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Sarah Brown & Karl Taylor, 2019. "Charitable Behaviour and Political Ideology: Evidence for the UK," Working Papers 2019002, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    2. Pinar Yildirim & Andrei Simonov & Maria Petrova & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2020. "Are Political and Charitable Giving Substitutes? Evidence from the United States," NBER Working Papers 26616, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Gordon B. Dahl & Runjing Lu & William Mullins, 2022. "Partisan Fertility and Presidential Elections," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 473-490, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

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