Pay or pray?
Subtitle: the impact of charitable subsidies on religious attendance
By: Jonathan Gruber.
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 10374; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 10374.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Charities.; Church attendance.
Description: "The economic argument for subsidizing charitable giving relies on the positive externalities of charitable activities, particularly from the religious institutions that are the largest recipients of giving.  But the net external effects of subsidies to religious giving will also depend on a potentially important indirect effect as well: impacts on religious participation.  Religious participation can be either a complement to, or a substitute with, the level of charitable giving.  Understanding these spillover effects of charitable giving may be quite important, given the existing observational literature that suggests that religiosity is a major determinant of well-being among Americans.  In this paper I investigate the impact of charitable subsidies on a measure of religious participation, attendance at religious services.  I do so by using data over three decades from the General Social Survey, as well as confirming the impact of such subsidies on religious giving using the Consumer Expenditure Survey.  I find strong evidence that religious giving and religious attendance are substitutes: larger subsidies to charitable giving lead to more religious giving, but less religious attendance, with an implied elasticity of attendance with respect to religious giving of -0.92.  These results have important implications for the debate over charitable subsidies.  They also serve to validate economic models of religious participation"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Also available in print.
Includes bibliographical references.
Title from PDF file as viewed on 1/14/2005.
System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.