Essays on economics and religion /
This dissertation consists of an introductory chapter, three independent essays, and a conclusion. Each of the essays uses an economic framework to analyze religious markets. Traditionally sociologists rather than economists have studied religion, however economic techniques can add to our understan...
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| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
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[Place of publication not identified] :
[publisher not identified] ;
2001.
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| Online Access: | http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=726089201&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=2945&RQT=309&VName=PQD |
| Summary: | This dissertation consists of an introductory chapter, three independent essays, and a conclusion. Each of the essays uses an economic framework to analyze religious markets. Traditionally sociologists rather than economists have studied religion, however economic techniques can add to our understanding of religious markets. Chapter II examines theoretical aspects of competition on religious markets. I formulate a club model that incorporates a simple product differentiation framework together with external benefits for church members. I then examine the interactions of member effort with church size, the number of churches per market, and religious participation rates. One resulting proposition is that the presence of more churches increases membership rates when substitution is good between church and nonchurch activities. Chapter III concerns the measurement of religious competition. There is an ongoing debate concerning whether and how religious pluralism and religious competition affect religious participation rates. Most empirical studies have used local level pluralism as the measure of competition. However difficulties arising from equating pluralism and competition may give rise to incorrect conclusions. I introduce a theoretical index of religious competition to analyze these difficulties. I also discuss some advantages of using national pluralism as an alternative to local pluralism. In Chapter IV, I model the salaries of religious ministers. In the model, churches act to limit the appearance of greed by their ministers. Specifically, churches set binding maximum allowable pay raises for their ministers. One result is that salary levels and the number of job separations depend on the slope of the salary profile, rather than the more normal occurrence in which the salary level and the slope of the salary profile depend on the number of job separations. Another result is that tenure salary profiles are flatter than, not steeper than, tenure productivity profiles. |
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| Item Description: | Vita. "Major Subject: Economics". |
| Physical Description: | v, 87 leaves ; 28 cm. Issued also on microfiche from University Microfilm Inc. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-84). |