Study of Philanthropic Behaviour in Divine Economics Framework

Abstract

Unfortunately, religious behaviour has been viewed by economists in terms of “Islamic economics,” “Christian economics”, etc. [Iannaccone (1986)]. Hence there has been a dichotomy prevailing between religious economic frameworks and the conventional rational choice theory.1 Whereas the conventional economists tried a variety of models to estimate the relationship between wages and time allocated to market labour supply but found that results mostly do not speak of the real world situation [Deaton (1980)]. The underlying reason was supposed to be faith and values which have strong effect on labour supply decisions [Pencavel (1986)]. The philanthropic behaviour relates to labour supply decisions directly through time allocated to voluntary services or indirectly through time allocated for earning and then donations out of these. It is observed that the variables of economic importance especially those relating to household resource allocation or labour supply decisions seem to be present in religious affiliation of individuals, their values and their perceptions about life before and after death as believed by the followers of divine religions which account for about two thirds of the world population.