Is the Importance of Religion in Daily Life Related to Social Trust? Cross-Country and Cross-State Comparisons

Niclas Berggren and Christian Bjørnskov

No 142, Ratio Working Papers from The Ratio Institute

Abstract: We look at the effect of religiosity on social trust, defined as the share of a population that thinks that people in general can be trusted. This is important since social trust is related to many desired outcomes, such as growth, education, democratic stability and subjective well-being. The effect of religiosity is theoretically unclear: while all major religions call for behaving well to others, religious groups may primarily trust people in their own groups and distrust others, as well as cause division in the broader population. We make use of new data from the Gallup World Poll for 105 countries and the U.S. states, measuring religiosity by the share of the population that answers yes to the question “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”. Our empirical results, making use of regression analysis whereby we control for other possible determinants of social trust and, by using instrumental variables, for the risk of reverse causality, indicate a robust, negative effect of religiosity, both internationally and within the US.

Keywords: Trust; Religiosity; Religion; Social Capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O57 Z12 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2009-09-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Forthcoming as Berggren, Niclas and Christian Bjørnskov, 'Does Religiosity Promote or Discourage Social Trust? Evidence from Cross-Country and Cross-State Comparisons' in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2011.

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Journal Article: Is the importance of religion in daily life related to social trust? Cross-country and cross-state comparisons (2011)
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