Building on the idea that religious communities provide mutual insurance against some idiosyncratic risks, we argue that religious membership is more valuable in societies exposed to greater common risk. In our empirical analysis we exploit rainfall risk as a source of common economic risk in...

We study the climate as a determinant of religious belief. People believe in the divine when religious authorities (the "church") can credibly intervene in nature on their behalf. We present a model in which nature sets the pattern of rainfall over time and the church chooses when optimally to...

Der vorliegende Bericht analysiert notwendige Rahmenbedingungen und arbeitet die Voraussetzungen heraus, die die ost- und mitteleuropäischen Länder erfüllen müssen, um am Wirtschaftsraum der Europäischen Union teilzunehmen. In diesem Zusammenhang wird geprüft, bei welchen Gütergruppen...