Economic Analysis: From Typology to Outcomes

Mario Ferrero

Chapter Chapter 7 in The Political Economy of Indo-European Polytheism, 2022, pp 117-140 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter engages in economic analysis. It provides a typology of the religions previously examined and explains the increase in the number ofGods/goddessesnumber of gods and in the overlap of their jurisdictionsOverlap, of gods’ jurisdictions as a rational over-detection biasOver-detection bias, providing insuranceInsurance against unknowns. It then identifies divine jealousy—the result of rational overestimation of the risk entailed by neglect of some gods—as the root of the supplicant’s dilemmaSupplicant’s dilemma, and examines possible escapes from this trap and its inefficiencyInefficiency. In these solutions, exemplified by HinduismHinduism and ZoroastrianismZoroastrianism, the priests played a pivotal role. We thus have two institutional equilibria: an inefficient Greco-Roman equilibrium with jealous godsGods/goddessesjealous and nonprofessional priests, and a Pareto-superior Hindu and Zoroastrian equilibrium with non-jealous godsGods/goddessesnon-jealous and monopolistic priesthood.

Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:conchp:978-3-030-97943-0_7

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-97943-0_7

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