American Economic Review Vol. 103 No. 3 2013

Not the Opium of the People: Income and Secularization in a Panel of Prussian Counties

Sascha O. Becker¹; Ludger Woessmann²

¹ Department of Economics and CAGE, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL United Kingdom. · ² Ifo Institute and Department of Economics, University of Munich, Germany.

Abstract

The interplay between religion and the economy has long occupied social scientists. We construct a unique panel of income and Protestant church attendance using 175 Prussian counties, presented in six waves from 1886 to 1911. The data reveal a marked decline in church attendance coinciding with increasing income. The cross-section also shows a negative association between income and church attendance. The associations disappear in panel analyses, including first-differenced models of the 1886 to 1911 change, panel models with county and time fixed effects, and panel Granger-causality tests. The results cast doubt on causal interpretations of the religion-economy nexus in Prussian secularization.

DOI

10.1257/aer.103.3.539

Volume

103

Issue

3

Pages

539-544

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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