Internal Migration and Religious Change: Evidence from Brazil`s Evangelical Rise

Raphael Corbi (), Tiago Ferraz () and Fabio Miessi Sanches ()

No 2025_10, Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP)

Abstract: This paper examines how migration affects religious markets, focusing on Brazil`s sweeping religious transformation between 1980 and 2010, when Evangelicalism expanded rapidly and Catholic affiliation declined to historic lows, with far-reaching political and social consequences. Using exogenous variation in migration flows driven by international commodity price shocks, we show that migration increased Evangelical affiliation and reduced Catholic affiliation. To unpack this result, we examine two mechanisms: a demand-side channel, in which falling wages increased the appeal of Evangelicalism, and a supply-side channel, in which migration triggered a large and asymmetric expansion of Evangelical—though not Catholic—infrastructure. This asymmetry reflects deep institutional differences between Evangelical denominations and the Catholic Church. A structural model of religious choice suggests that this asymmetric supply-side response was the main driver of migration-induced Evangelical growth.

Keywords: Religion; Migration; Structural Estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C51 R23 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-08-14
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.repec.eae.fea.usp.br/documentos/Corbi_Ferraz_Sanches_10WP.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spa:wpaper:2025wpecon10

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Pedro Garcia Duarte ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).