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God insures those who pay? Formal insurance and religious offerings in Ghana
- Source :
- Quarterly Journal of Economics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2020, 135 (4), pp.1799-1848. ⟨10.1093/qje/qjaa015⟩, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 135, no.4, p. 1799–1848 (2020)
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2020.
-
Abstract
- This article provides experimental support for the hypothesis that insurance can be a motive for religious donations. We randomize enrollment of members of a Pentecostal church in Ghana into a commercial funeral insurance policy. Then church members allocate money between themselves and a set of religious goods in a series of dictator games with significant stakes. Members enrolled in insurance give significantly less money to their own church compared with members who only receive information about the insurance. Enrollment also reduces giving toward other spiritual goods. We set up a model exploring different channels of religiously based insurance. The implications of the model and the results from the dictator games suggest that adherents perceive the church as a source of insurance and that this insurance is derived from beliefs in an interventionist God. Survey results suggest that material insurance from the church community is also important and we hypothesize that these two insurance channels exist in parallel.
- Subjects :
- Economics and Econometrics
Informal insurance
050204 development studies
Survey result
JEL: G - Financial Economics/G.G2 - Financial Institutions and Services/G.G2.G22 - Insurance • Insurance Companies • Actuarial Studies
JEL: Z - Other Special Topics/Z.Z1 - Cultural Economics • Economic Sociology • Economic Anthropology/Z.Z1.Z12 - Religion
O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
Insurance policy
0502 economics and business
Economics
050207 economics
Set (psychology)
B- ECONOMIE ET FINANCE
Public economics
D14 - Household Saving
O17 - Formal and Informal Sectors
Charitable giving
Z12 - Religion
05 social sciences
[SHS.ECO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Economics and Finance
Insurance Companies
Institutional Arrangements
Shadow Economy
JEL: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth/O.O1 - Economic Development/O.O1.O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
Dictator
Personal FinanceG22 - Insurance
JEL: D - Microeconomics/D.D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics/D.D1.D14 - Household Saving
Personal Finance
JEL: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth/O.O1 - Economic Development/O.O1.O17 - Formal and Informal Sectors • Shadow Economy • Institutional Arrangements
Economics of religion
Actuarial Studies
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00335533 and 15314650
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Quarterly Journal of Economics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2020, 135 (4), pp.1799-1848. ⟨10.1093/qje/qjaa015⟩, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 135, no.4, p. 1799–1848 (2020)
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....b66d4adb8c0ae254df391879863fffa4