Competition and Participation in Religious Markets: Evidence from Victorian Scotland

Robert I. Mochrie, John Sawkins and Alexander Naumov

No E01, Working Papers from Department of Economics, School of Management and Languages, Heriot Watt University

Abstract: In 1885, the largest churches in Scotland were engaged in a dispute about state funding. We use data generated in the course of that dispute to examine the standard economics of religion hypothesis that higher levels of competition in 1032 local markets for religious services, proxied by the number of denominations active in each, were associated with higher religious affiliation, proxied by measures of attendance and voluntary congregational giving. Adapting the complexity order approach of Montgomery (2003), we find evidence that is congruent with the hypothesis. However, we contend that the evidence is better explained by an alternative proposition that, given the particular institutional structure of markets and denominations at this time, market complexity does not decline with increasing market size

Keywords: Competition; institutional structure; Presbyterian; Scotland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L88 N93 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-soc
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Journal Article: Competition and Participation in Religious Markets: Evidence from Victorian Scotland (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hwe:hwecwp:2006-e01

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