The Experts below are selected from a list of 267 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Lars Lønstrup - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Church Membership and Social Insurance: Evidence from the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Research Papers in Economics, 2016Co-Authors: Philipp Ager, Casper Worm Hansen, Lars LønstrupAbstract:Religious communities are key providers of social insurance. This paper focuses on the devastating impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 to investigate how an increase in the demand for social insurance affects Church Membership. We find a significant increase in Church Membership in flooded counties. This effect is stronger in counties with severe economic losses and where access to credit was limited. We also document that fundamental denominations gained more members in flooded counties, which is consistent with the theory of club goods emphasizing the efficient provision of mutual insurance in stricter religious communities.
-
Church Membership and Social Insurance: Evidence from the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Social Science Research Network, 2014Co-Authors: Philipp Ager, Casper Worm Hansen, Lars LønstrupAbstract:Religious organizations are key providers of social insurance. This paper focuses on the devastating impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 to investigate how an increase in the demand for social insurance affects Church Membership. We find a significant increase in Church Membership in flooded counties. This effect is stronger in counties with severe economic losses and where access to credit was limited. Consistent with economic theories stressing the insurance aspect of religious organizations, we show that denominations with a relatively large Church network, or classified as strict and charity-oriented, gained more members in flooded counties.
-
Church Membership and Social Insurance: Evidence from the American South
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014Co-Authors: Philipp Ager, Casper Worm Hansen, Lars LønstrupAbstract:We examine the effect of increased demand for social insurance on Church Membership. Our empirical strategy exploits the differential impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 across counties to identify a shock to the demand for social insurance. We find that flooded counties experienced a significant increase in Church Membership. Consistent with economic theories about determinants of Membership of religious organizations, our result suggests that local Churches provided ex-post insurance for the needy and in return gained new members.
Philipp Ager - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Church Membership and Social Insurance: Evidence from the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Research Papers in Economics, 2016Co-Authors: Philipp Ager, Casper Worm Hansen, Lars LønstrupAbstract:Religious communities are key providers of social insurance. This paper focuses on the devastating impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 to investigate how an increase in the demand for social insurance affects Church Membership. We find a significant increase in Church Membership in flooded counties. This effect is stronger in counties with severe economic losses and where access to credit was limited. We also document that fundamental denominations gained more members in flooded counties, which is consistent with the theory of club goods emphasizing the efficient provision of mutual insurance in stricter religious communities.
-
Church Membership and Social Insurance: Evidence from the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Social Science Research Network, 2014Co-Authors: Philipp Ager, Casper Worm Hansen, Lars LønstrupAbstract:Religious organizations are key providers of social insurance. This paper focuses on the devastating impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 to investigate how an increase in the demand for social insurance affects Church Membership. We find a significant increase in Church Membership in flooded counties. This effect is stronger in counties with severe economic losses and where access to credit was limited. Consistent with economic theories stressing the insurance aspect of religious organizations, we show that denominations with a relatively large Church network, or classified as strict and charity-oriented, gained more members in flooded counties.
-
Church Membership and Social Insurance: Evidence from the American South
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014Co-Authors: Philipp Ager, Casper Worm Hansen, Lars LønstrupAbstract:We examine the effect of increased demand for social insurance on Church Membership. Our empirical strategy exploits the differential impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 across counties to identify a shock to the demand for social insurance. We find that flooded counties experienced a significant increase in Church Membership. Consistent with economic theories about determinants of Membership of religious organizations, our result suggests that local Churches provided ex-post insurance for the needy and in return gained new members.
-
Rainfall Risk and Religious Membership in the Late Nineteenth-Century US
2013Co-Authors: Philipp Ager, Antonio CicconeAbstract:Insurance among the members of religious organizations should be more valuable in communities facing greater risk, making Membership in religious organizations more attractive in high-risk environments. We examine the link between rainfall risk and Church Membership as well as seating capacity across US counties in the second half of the nineteenth century. Our results indicate that Church Membership and seating capacity were signicantly larger in counties likely to have been subject to greater rainfall risk. This link is present among the most agricultural counties and among counties with low population densities, but not among less agricultural or more densely populated counties. Among the most agricultural counties, a one-standard-deviation increase in rainfall risk is associated with an increase in Church seating capacity of around 32 percent in 1890 and 65 percent in 1860.
Judith R. Blau - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Ethnocultural cleavages and the growth of Church Membership in the United States, 1860-1930
Sociological Forum, 1993Co-Authors: Judith R. Blau, Kent Redding, Kenneth C. LandAbstract:Recent research on the expansion of overall Church Membership in the United States has led to conflicting conclusions as to whether religious diversity or monopoly increases participation. This investigation helps resolve the debate by distinguishing among different religious traditions. It is hypothesized that differences in participation can be traced to racial, ethnic, and doctrinal divisions, and moreover, that these divisions also provide the contingent conditions under which competition or monopoly effects operate. Using pooled cross-sectional time series, comparisons center on Catholics, Baptists, and Mainline denominations. Separate analyses are presented for white and black Baptists, and for the Northern Baptist Convention that emerged in the early 20th century as a relatively liberal Baptist denomination. The results suggest that ecumenical and liberal religious traditions did accompany religious diversity, but Membership in such Churches grew very slowly. In contrast, groups that faced discrimination as well as those that shielded themselves from progressive currents of modernism sustained high rates of growth. Their monopoly situations are evident in the low religious diversity of counties in which they grew (as well as by low ethnic or racial diversity) and by their increasing spatial concentration over time.
-
Religious Pluralism and Church Membership: A Spatial Diffusion Model
American Sociological Review, 1991Co-Authors: Kenneth C. Land, Glenn Deane, Judith R. BlauAbstract:Recent empirical research on the effect of religious pluralism on Church Membership in the United States has produced contradictoryfindings. One study reported that religious pluralism had a positive effect on the prevalence of Church Membership, whereas another study reported a negative effect. Using county-level census datafor 1910, 1920, and 1930, wefind that religious diversity generally retards Church Membership. We also extend research on this topic. We introduce a measure that summarizes the effect of Church adherence in surrounding counties on Church adherence in a particular county. Examining the effects of a variety of social and economic conditions on Church Membership, we find that, in the early decades of this century, Church participation was high in counties for which there are indications of social deprivation and marginality. Ethnic and religious diversity retard Church Membership and the positive impact of religious adherence elsewhere on a particular county's religious participation declines over time.
Casper Worm Hansen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Church Membership and Social Insurance: Evidence from the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Research Papers in Economics, 2016Co-Authors: Philipp Ager, Casper Worm Hansen, Lars LønstrupAbstract:Religious communities are key providers of social insurance. This paper focuses on the devastating impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 to investigate how an increase in the demand for social insurance affects Church Membership. We find a significant increase in Church Membership in flooded counties. This effect is stronger in counties with severe economic losses and where access to credit was limited. We also document that fundamental denominations gained more members in flooded counties, which is consistent with the theory of club goods emphasizing the efficient provision of mutual insurance in stricter religious communities.
-
Church Membership and Social Insurance: Evidence from the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Social Science Research Network, 2014Co-Authors: Philipp Ager, Casper Worm Hansen, Lars LønstrupAbstract:Religious organizations are key providers of social insurance. This paper focuses on the devastating impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 to investigate how an increase in the demand for social insurance affects Church Membership. We find a significant increase in Church Membership in flooded counties. This effect is stronger in counties with severe economic losses and where access to credit was limited. Consistent with economic theories stressing the insurance aspect of religious organizations, we show that denominations with a relatively large Church network, or classified as strict and charity-oriented, gained more members in flooded counties.
-
Church Membership and Social Insurance: Evidence from the American South
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014Co-Authors: Philipp Ager, Casper Worm Hansen, Lars LønstrupAbstract:We examine the effect of increased demand for social insurance on Church Membership. Our empirical strategy exploits the differential impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 across counties to identify a shock to the demand for social insurance. We find that flooded counties experienced a significant increase in Church Membership. Consistent with economic theories about determinants of Membership of religious organizations, our result suggests that local Churches provided ex-post insurance for the needy and in return gained new members.
Torsten Santavirta - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
The effect of Church tax on Church Membership
Journal of Population Economics, 2012Co-Authors: Teemu Lyytikäinen, Torsten SantavirtaAbstract:In this study, we examine the effect of Church tax on the Church Membership decision using Finnish data. We present both descriptive statistics from an opting-out website and econometric evidence exploiting the panel structure of a large individual-level data set. Our descriptive analysis shows that opting out is concentrated towards the last days of the year, i.e., the last chance to avoid paying Church tax for the entire coming year. Our econometric evidence suggests that the average effect of tax incentives for the whole population is both statistically and economically significant. A 1 standard deviation increase in Church tax leads to between 0.5 and 1 percentage point decline in the likelihood of Church Membership. In addition, we find that Church Membership dropped substantially when a law change made opting out significantly easier. This finding suggests that transaction costs play an important role in the Membership decision.
-
The Effect of Church Tax on Church Membership
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010Co-Authors: Teemu Lyytikäinen, Torsten SantavirtaAbstract:In this study we examine the effect of Church tax on the Church Membership decision using Finnish data. We present both descriptive statistics from an opting-out website and econometric evidence exploiting the panel structure of a large individual-level data set. Our descriptive analysis shows that opting-out is concentrated towards the last days of the year, i.e., the last chance to avoid paying Church tax for the entire coming year. Our econometric evidence suggests however, that the average effect of tax incentives in the whole population is very small in magnitude, while being statistically significant. The price elasticity of Church Membership is roughly -0.01. In addition, we find that Church Membership dropped substantially when a law change made opting-out significantly easier. This finding suggests that transaction costs play an important role in the Membership decision.