Betting on the Lord: Lotteries and Religiosity in Haiti

Emmanuelle Auriol, Diego Delissaint, Maleke Fourati, Josepa Miquel-Florensa and Paul Seabright

No 14167, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We conducted an experimental study in Haiti testing for the relationship between religious belief and individual risk taking behavior. 774 subjects played lotteries in a standard neutral protocol and subsequently with reduced endowments but in the presence of religious images of Catholic, Protestant and Voodoo tradition. Subjects chose between paying to play a lottery with an image of their choice, and saving their money to play with no image. Those who chose the former are defi ned as image buyers and those who chose the latter as non-buyers. Image buyers, who tend to be less educated, more rural, and to exhibit greater religiosity, bet more than non-buyers in all games. In addition, in the presence of religious images all participants took more risk, and buyers took more risk when playing in the presence of their chosen images than when playing with other images. We develop a theoretical model calibrated with our experimental data to explore the channels through which religious images might affect risk-taking. Our results suggest that the presence of images tends to increase individuals' subjective probability of winning the lottery, and that subjects therefore believe in a god who intervenes actively in the world in response to their requests.

Keywords: Risk preferences; Religion; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D81 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-soc and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Betting on the lord: Lotteries and religiosity in Haiti (2021)
Working Paper: Betting on the Lord: lotteries and religiosity in Haiti (2021)
Working Paper: Betting on the Lord: Lotteries and Religiosity in Haiti (2019)
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