Religiosity and State Welfare

Angela Dills and Rey Hernández-Julián

No 19169, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The Catholic sex abuse scandals reduced both membership and religiosity in the Catholic Church. Because government spending on welfare may substitute for the religious provision of social services, we consider whether this plausibly exogenous decline in religiosity affected several measures of the public taste towards government spending on welfare between 1990 and 2008. In places where there were more scandals, individuals state a preference for less government provision of social services. In contrast, a higher level of abuse is also associated with an increase in voting for Democratic candidates for President and state legislatures, and an increase in per capita government welfare spending, although this increase is insufficient to replace the decrease in Catholic-provided charity.

JEL-codes: H41 I38 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe and nep-pol
Note: PE
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Published as Religiosity and State Welfare , Angela K. Dills, Rey Hernández-Julián. in Economics of Religion and Culture , Hungerman and Chen. 2014
Published as Dills, Angela K. & Hernández-Julián, Rey, 2014. "Religiosity and state welfare," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 37-51.

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