An Economic Theory of Church Strictness

Abstract

This paper makes several contributions to the growing literature on the economics of religion. First, we explicitly introduce spatial-location models into the economics of religion. Second, we offer a new explanation for the observed tendency of state (monopoly) churches to locate toward the low-tension end of the continuum (in a one-dimensional product space): This result is obtained through the conjunction of benevolent preferences (denominations care about the aggregate utility of members) and asymmetric costs of going to a more or less strict church than one prefers. We also derive implications regarding the relationship between religious strictness and membership. The driving forces of our analysis, religious market interactions and asymmetric costs of membership, high-light new explanations for some well-established stylized facts. The analysis opens the way to new empirical tests, aimed at confronting the implications of our model against more traditional explanations.