Teaching the Economics of Religion: Mixing it into Undergraduate Microeconomics Courses [Stonebraker]
Robert J. Stonebraker
Winthrop University
Integrating topics from the economics of religion can enrich a wide variety of undergraduate courses that use microeconomics. Students typically respond favorably and gain an enhanced appreciation of the power of economic concepts. Although the types of concepts most easily addressed will vary with the course and audience, the most natural points of intersection include: (1) a discussion of free-rider problems in religious organizations in a section on externality and public good issues, (2) monopoly structure and conduct, (3) rent-seeking behavior under government regulation, (4) market strategies, and (5) Hotelling models of spatial competition.
File: StonbreakerTeaching Religion Panel.doc [64.00KB]
Published 11/02/2007
Filed under: (2007), *stonebraker, @asrec'07, free riding, monopoly, rent seeking, spatial competition, teaching
Strategic Congregational Management [Bejarano]
Hernan Bejarano
Pennsylvania State University
We developed a framework where the behavior of two types of agents in a society is modeled to represent the implicit problem faced by two types of rational agents. The first type of agent is a congregational leader who tries maximizes the size and stability of his congregation. The second kind of agents are the members of the society, these agents have to who have to choose which congregation they would like to join as well as for how long to stay as member in order congregations maximize their expected utility. We found that in the congregational monopoly environment the stability of the congregation is related to the ability of the congregational leader to influence the members of the congregation to impose a social cost on the possible defecting members
File: Bejarano almost done.pdf [162.88KB]
Published 11/02/2007
Filed under: (2007), *bejarano, @asrec'07, congregations, monopoly
Deregulating Religion: The Economics of Church and State [Finke, Iannaccone, Stark]
Laurence R. Iannaccone
Santa Clara University
Roger Finke
Purdue University
Rodney Stark
University of Washington
Economic Inquiry
Western Economic Association International
Traditional religious research fails to recognize religion as a market phenomenon. It especially overlooks supply-side factors that shape the incentives and opportunities of religious firms, emphasizing instead demand-side shifts in the perceptions, tastes, and needs of consumers. This paper reviews the effects of government actions that alter religious supply. Our examples demonstrate that simple deregulation lies at the root of major religious trends and that the vitality of a religious market depends critically upon its competitiveness. (JEL: L51)
File: Iannaccone - Deregulating Religion.pdf [1.57MB]
Published 04/01/1997
Filed under: (1997), *finke, *iannaccone, *stark, @asrec'07, competition, deregulation, monopoly, religious firms, religious markets