Religious Market Theory assigns basic market principles to the market for religion. The derived supply side model proposes that religiosity is higher on a competitive market, characterized by high religious diversity. Churches will provide higher quality goods compared to monopolistic churches....

The empirical relation between happiness and religiosity is considered from the perspective of basic utility theory. An unbalanced cross-country panel data set is used to study whether religiosity can be considered as a substitute in the happiness function, which itself is held to be a proxy for...

We construct a simple index for national identity using information from the World Values Survey on peoples’ attitudes towards the nation. We then analyze the relationship between national identity and religious diversity. The results show that religious diversity is significantly and...

Despite all economic and social transitions that have occurred in the last centuries we still find that people go to church. Somehow religious beliefs have not vanished over time. Since there is no material reward for going to church or praying religiosity has to create utility through other...

Iannaccone's (1991) seminal paper assigns basic market principles to the market for religion. In a competitive market with high religious diversity the level of overall religiosity should increase. The Secularization Hypothesis suggests that the establishment of new churches casts doubt on the...

We find a U-shaped relation between happiness and religiosity in cross-country panel data after controlling for income levels. At a given level of income, the same level of happiness can be reached with high and low levels of religiosity, but not with intermediate levels. A rise in income causes...

Religious Market Theory assigns basic market principles to the market for religion. The derived supply side model proposes that religiosity is higher on a competitive market, characterized by high religious diversity. Churches will provide higher quality goods compared to monopolistic churches....

type="main" <title type="main">Summary</title> <p>People are attracted to the idea of nationalism and a national identity. Existing literature proposes that social heterogeneity has a detrimental effect on national identity. We contribute to this literature by proposing that religious diversity, as another form of social...</p>

We construct an index for national identity using information from the World Values Survey on peoples' affection towards the nation. We then analyze the relationship between national identity and religious diversity. The results show that religious diversity is significantly and negatively...