Primogeniture and Protestant Entry
As a preliminary test of this proposition, we gathered data on the principal entry points of Protestantism and compared the acceptance of the new religion with the conditions most likely to encourage its success or failure. Our stylized theory predicts that societies enforcing primogeniture would be most likely to remain Catholic, whereas those societies with more fluid property laws and hence more opportunities for wealth enhancement by a larger strata of society would find Protestantism more...
Urban Growth and Protestant Entry
In the previous section we argued that primogeniture is a reasonable proxy for income distribution in a medieval society. The predominant historical view, that the Protestant Reformation was basically an urban phenomenon,''57 offers another opportunity to test our theory. Inasmuch as city size and growth reflect exchange volume, and exchange volume reflects wider income distribution, a demonstrable link should exist between urban growth and the practice of primogeniture a proxy for income...
Spatial Competition and Organizational Form
This issue of the rational basis for selection of church governance among the reformed churches of Europe in the sixteenth century has not attracted much attention. Yet there is a pattern of selection that can be explained by economic theory. In religious markets that were contiguous and in which the central government was relatively weak, Protestant churches adopted more democratic i.e., congregational governance structures but in isolated or sheltered markets where central government was...
Wholesale Adjustments by the Medieval Church
Whereas attempts by the Catholic Church to clean up its retail operations were transparent, its wholesale actions were much less so. Indeed, attempts to reform the wholesale side of the Church were ineffective. In order to understand this failure at the wholesale level, it is necessary to grasp the central characteristics of the administrative landscape of the medieval Catholic Church. Two important changes in church organization occurred prior to the Protestant Reformation, and these changes...
Religion Public Good or Private Good
When we turn our attention to the question of religion as a public or a private good, we encounter different sets of issues. A private good is one that is easily divisible into parts that can be sold in a market so that it becomes the unique possession of the purchaser. By virtue of this unique possession enforced by private property rights the owner of the good can exclude others from the benefits that the good conveys. Hence, private goods are subject to the exclusion principle. An apple, for...
Economics World Food Production and the Form of Penance
Were economic as well as spiritual motives at work in the process of institutional transformation of the Roman Catholic Church between the late 1950s and mid-1960s We believe that the economic motive of the Church that of wealth maximization was conditioned by patterns of world food production and that economic facts might help explain the Church's decision to alter the rules respecting penance. Regional and Distribution of actual membership in the College of Cardinals by world region and...
An Evolving Power Structure
Collegiality characterized the Church of Peter and his successors for over one thousand years. This meant that bishops, including the Bishop of Rome the Pope were elected by the clerics and by the people through regional or national synods. In the early Church, the rank of Cardinal which, like the Pope, is simply a bishop was partly administrative and largely honorific. Papal election by a College of Cardinals, the current practice, did not begin until the twelfth century. Initially the College...
Joint Products Penance and the Price of Leather
Consider tables 4.3 and 4.4 even more closely. They show that meat and fish production both account for a relatively large part of GNP in Peru, Denmark, Taiwan, South Africa, the Netherlands, Canada, Spain, and Chile. Spain is a special case, for reasons we discuss later in this Twenty major meat-producing countries as percent of GNP , 1958 number of new and replacement cardinals in 1966 by country appointed, 1958-1966 Twenty major meat-producing countries as percent of GNP , 1958 number of new...
Myth Magic Religion and Survival
Belief in myth and magic is as old as sentient humanity. Many scholars have argued that some form of mythmaking is as integral to being human'' as are sex and food. Yet, the market for myth most particularly the demand side of the market is nebulous and complex. Although the economic approach espoused here does not require a complete comprehension of the characteristics of particular myths or magic, it is important to understand some fundamentals in order to arrive at a conception of demand for...
Measures by the Incumbent Firm to Raise Rivals Costs
In certain respects, the medieval Catholic Church's reaction to Protestant entry was analogous to the reaction of business firms to regulated competition or to the tendency of special interests to seek protective trade legislation. In such cases, incumbent firms seek to protect their market power by raising rivals' costs. In the sixteenth century the rivals were, on the one hand, the new Protestant sects Lutherans, Anglicans, Calvinists, etc. , and on the other, the new heretics from the...
Interest Groups and Doctrinal Change Eating Meat on Friday
Doctrinal change is often believed to be out of the purview of economic interests and, admittedly, there are many factors to consider. In some instances, however, economic interests and groups representing them help explain doctrinal change and changing religious proscriptions. For example, real reform in Roman Catholic Church doctrine was afoot dur ing the late 1950s and 1960s during the reigns of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. These institutional changes were promulgated first through the...
Price Discrimination in the Medieval Religion Market
The first prerequisite for a firm to practice price discrimination is the existence of monopoly power, which the Church had acquired by the Middle Ages. The medieval church took on the posture of a vertically integrated, dominant firm, capable of engaging in product innovation, differentiation, and development.10 From the twelfth century on, it introduced doctrinal innovations that encouraged and facilitated the practice of price discrimination. Through these innovations, church managers were...
Anecdotal Evidence of Market Forces at Work
We believe that the broad contours of history provide evidence for the view that people exhibit a demand for religion and that churches respond by supplying religious services. History tells us that when survival was most uncertain as in primitive societies with low levels of science, education, and resources the forms of religion demanded involved time-consuming rituals, cult-like behavior, and, eventually, club-like organizations e.g., Freemasons or the Knights of Columbus . Existential dread...
Preface
Economic markets tell us about the production and distribution of material goods. But humankind's spiritual needs, as manifested through the ages by the practices of magic and religion, are as pressing and durable as its material needs. The existential dilemma posed by life on planet earth was as real for the ancient hunter as it is for the modern computer programmer. For eons, religion in its myriad forms has been a binding force of human populations and a contributing factor to human...
What Is the Core Product of Religion
The core product that is supplied by organized religion is information, but it is information of a peculiar sort. It is typical of any religion that the information supplied cannot be verified by experimental, empirical, or other scientific means. Hence, as we noted earlier, religion is a credence good. Moreover, the information provided may be used to satisfy wants on many different margins. For example, moral codes provide unity, social order, and stability. Hence, religion is a public good....
Advantages of the Economic Approach
The events in the United States of September 11, 2001, and their aftermath, have stirred, more than ever, awareness among social scientists of the importance of studying religion. This book seeks to contribute to our understanding of religion by demonstrating the usefulness of economic analysis for the study of Christianity, both past and present. The level of historical and theological analysis presented here is not as deep as some scholars would prefer, but such depth is neither the intent...
Religion Church and Economics
In all history, we do not find a single religion without a church. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life A glorious Church is like a magnificent feast there is all the variety that may be, but every one chooses out a dish or two that he likes, and lets the rest alone how glorious soever the Church is, every one chooses out of it his own religion, by which he governs himself, and lets the rest alone. John Selden, Table Talk The concepts of religion and church are so...
Is There an Economics of Religion
No urge, primal or modern, is more fundamental than the desire to explain existence. Human curiosity concerning mankind's ultimate origins and destinations has motivated multiple belief systems and organized religions, all seeking, more or less, to provide meaning to life on earth. Although we cannot know for sure, it is quite possible that religion is as old as mankind. Can the same be said of economics Whereas economic behavior is probably as old as Homo erectus, by a common consensus the...
Limitations of the Economic Approach
The extension of Adam Smith's analysis of the economics of religion is even more appropriate today for two reasons Religion remains at the center of culture and civilization, and economic theory has progressed substantially in the past two and a half centuries. Contemporary economics can bring many analytical tools and concepts to bear that were not available to Smith and his contemporaries. Our study relies not only on the standard techniques of demand and supply analysis, but also on...