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

Sascha O. Becker | Zendy; Ludger Woessmann | Zendy

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

Author(s) -

Sascha O. Becker,

Ludger Woessmann

Publication year - 2013

Publication title -

american economic review

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 16.936

H-Index - 297

eISSN - 1944-7981

pISSN - 0002-8282

DOI - 10.1257/aer.103.3.539

Subject(s) - secularization , church attendance , nexus (standard) , protestantism , economics , panel data , opium , demographic economics , causality (physics) , attendance , monasticism , development economics , econometrics , political science , history , economic growth , religiosity , law , ancient history , computer science , embedded system , physics , quantum mechanics

The interplay between religion and the economy has occupied social scientists for long. We construct a unique panel of income and Protestant church attendance for six waves of up to 175 Prussian counties spanning 1886-1911. 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. But the association disappears in panel analyses, including first-differenced models of the 1886-1911 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.

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