American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics
ISSN 1945-7782 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7790 (Online)
Divine Policy: The Impact of Religion in Government
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
(pp. 195–247)
Abstract
Can policies shape personal values and beliefs? To examine, we exploit the staggered introduction of faith-based initiatives across US states. Our difference-in-differences analysis reveals that the initiatives strengthened religiosity and conservative-religious social views, such as attitudes against homosexuals. The evidence points to causal effects; we find no systematic differences prior to implementation, the results are robust to restricting comparison to contiguous counties and to conducting triple-differences estimation exploiting treatment heterogeneity. A key explanation, in line with standard models of religion and supported by data on nonprofit organizations, is that the initiatives facilitated the establishment of faith-based organizations.Citation
Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding, Alessandro Pizzigolotto, and Lena Lindbjerg Sperling. 2026. "Divine Policy: The Impact of Religion in Government." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 18 (1): 195–247. DOI: 10.1257/app.20240018Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- L31 Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
- Z12 Cultural Economics: Religion
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification