God and the global economy: religion and attitudes towards trade and immigration in the United States

Using the results of a national identity survey, we test the impact of religious affiliation on trade and immigration-policy preferences of U.S. residents while controlling for individual level of skill, political ideology, and other important demographic characteristics. Our results show that religion is an important determinant of international-policy preferences as individuals who are pre-Vatican II Catholic or members of a fundamentalist Protestant denomination are more likely to prefer policies that restrict imports and immigration. Religiosity, in contrast, has a separate effect of moderating attitudes toward immigration. In addition, we find evidence of denominational effects among African Americans in that members of fundamentalist denominations tend to favor policies that restrict imports while others do not, implying that statistical results commonly attributed to racial effects may actually be a religion effect. Valuable comments and insights were provided by Jim McGibany, participants of the Third Annual Conference on Religion, Economics, and Culture, and two anonymous referees.