Private School Choice: The Effects of Religious Affiliation and Participation [Cohen-Zada; Sander]
Danny Cohen-Zada (Ben-Gurion University) and William Sander (DePaul University)
In this paper, we quantify the religious factor in private education in the United States by estimating a Random Utility Model of school-choice in which households choose among public, private-nonsectarian, Catholic and Protestant schools. In our model households differ not only in their income levels but also in their religion and religiosity levels. The model is then estimated using multinomial logit and multinomial probit regressions of attendance at different types of private schools using individual data from the “General Social Survey”. We find that both religion and religiosity have important effects on the demand for the different types of private schools. Further, it is shown that if religiosity is not taken into account (the usual case), the effect of religion on demand is biased. Our results imply that previous studies on the treatment effect of Catholic schools that have not taken into account the selection of high-religiosity youth into Catholic schools over-estimated the positive influence of Catholic schools.
File: Zada-Cohen-2007paper.doc [664.00KB]
Published 11/02/2007
Filed under: (2007), *cohen-zada, *sander, @asrec'07, catholic, catholic school, demand for schooling, gss, protestant, religious education, school choice
Moving on Over: Geographic Mobility as a Predictor of Religious Switching and Attendance Frequency in the American Religious Landscape [Born]
Christopher Born
The Catholic University of America
Geographic mobility has been on the rise over the last twenty years. Measuring how location change impacts belief and church attendance is essential in understanding the religious tendencies and potentialities of the growing cohort of the geographically mobile. Toward that end, this paper examines data from the 1988-1991 General Social Survey to determine whether geographic mobility and/or religious switching can predict the frequency with which people attend church services. The first section analyzes geographic mobility and its impact on religious switching. The results of the binary logistic regression support the hypothesis that geographic mobility increases the odds of switching religions. In the second section, religious switching is examined to determine if those who switch religions are more or less likely to be frequent attendees of church services. Previous studies conclude that switchers are more religious on average than non-switchers on measures of belief, church attendance, and religious experience (Hadaway 1980, Roof and McKinney 1987, Hadaway and Marler 1993). It stands to reason that actively choosing one’s religion will lead to heightened participation, however, this does not appear to be the case. A logistic regression analysis of the 1988-1991 GSS survey shows that there is no significant difference in frequency of attendance when examining switchers against non-switchers. The paper concludes in discussing potential reasons for the new findings and implications for future research.
File: Chirs Born - ASREC Paper - 2007.doc [157.00KB]
Published 11/02/2007
Filed under: (2007), *born, @asrec'07, gss, mobility, religious attendance, religious switching
Skewness Explained: A Rational Choice Model of Religious Giving [Iannaccone]
Laurence R. Iannaccone
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1997
Abstract: This paper explores the determinants of religious giving through simulations, economic theory, and survey data. Skewness, a distinctive yet poorly understood feature of religious giving, proves to be an inevitable consequence of the weak correlation between absolute levels of income and percentage rates of giving. The weak correlation can be derived, in turn, from a formal, rational choice model of religious participation. Data from the General Social Surveys show that this model also accounts for many other observed patterns in giving and church attendance.
File:
Iannaccone - Skewness Explained.pdf [1.55MB]
File:
Iannaccone - Skewness Explained -D.pdf [77.34KB]
Published 06/01/1997
Filed under: (1997), *iannaccone, attendance, contributions, economics of religion, giving, gss, philanthropy, rational choice, rationality, religion, skewness