The Power of Religious Organizations in Human Decision Processes: Analyzing Voting Behavior

Benno Torgler, David Stadelmann and Marco Portmann

CREMA Working Paper Series from Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA)

Abstract: In Switzerland, two key church institutions - the Conference of Swiss Bishops (CSB) and the Federation of Protestant Churches (FPC) - make public recommendations on how to vote for certain referenda. We leverage this unique situation to directly measure religious organizations' power to shape human decision making. We employ an objective measure of voters' commitment to their religious organization to determine whether they are more likely to vote in line with this organization's recommendations. We find that voting recommendations do indeed matter, implying that even in a secularized world, religion plays a crucial role in voting decisions.

Keywords: Power; religion; voting; referenda; trust; rules of thumb (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D72 D83 H70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-hme, nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Power of Religious Organizations in Human Decision Processes: Analyzing Voting Behavior (2014)
Working Paper: The Power of Religious Organizations in Human Decision Processes: Analyzing Voting Behavior (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cra:wpaper:2013-20

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