A large literature explores crowd out in situations where public goods are jointly provided; work in this area typically depicts a tax system where individuals take taxes as given. But in some settings, such as those in developing economies, efforts to evade or avoid taxes may be widespread. Using...

A large literature shows that religious participation is associated with a wide range of behaviors and outcomes, but what drives this association is unclear. On the one hand, this association may stem from correlations in preferences, where those with tastes for religion coincidentally have...

This paper considers substituting one charitable activity for another in the context of religious practice. I examine the impact of the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal on both Catholic and non-Catholic religiosity. I find that the scandal led to a 2-million-member fall in the Catholic...

Research has repeatedly shown that altruism is lower in diverse communities. Can this phenomenon be counteracted by government intervention? To answer this question, this paper introduces diversity to the canonical model of "warm glow" giving. Diversity may have two effects on incentives: it may...

Regular church attendance is strongly associated with a higher probability of voting. It is an open question as to whether this association, which has been confirmed in numerous surveys, is causal. We use the repeal of the laws restricting Sunday retail activity ("Blue laws") to measure the...

In this paper we ask how the diffusion of oral contraception to young unmarried women affected the number and maternal characteristics of children born to these women. Using census data, we find that early pill access led to an increase in the share of children whose mothers were married,...

Recently economists have begun to consider the causes and consequences of religious participation. An unanswered question in this literature is the effect upon individuals of changes in the opportunity cost of religious participation. In this paper we identify a policy-driven change in the...

Interest in religious organizations as providers of social services has increased dramatically in recent years. Churches in the U.S. were a crucial provider of social services through the early part of the twentieth century, but their role shrank dramatically with the expansion in government...

The availability of public funding for charitable church activity has increased dramatically in the past decade. A key dispute over this increased availability is whether congregations' propensity to provide charitable services depends upon the racial composition of the community served. This...