Not the Opium of the People: Income and Secularization in a Panel of Prussian Counties

American Economic Review · 2013 · Volume 103 · Issue 3

Abstract

The interplay between religion and the economy has long occupied social scientists. We construct a unique panel of income and Protestant church attendance using 175 Prussian counties, presented in six waves from 1886 to 1911. The data reveal a marked decline in church attendance coinciding with increasing income. The cross-section also shows a negative association between income and church attendance. The associations disappear in panel analyses, including first-differenced models of the 1886 to 1911 change, panel models with county and time fixed effects, and panel Granger-causality tests. The results cast doubt on causal interpretations of the religion-economy nexus in Prussian secularization.

Keywords

Macroeconomics: Production, Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics, Industrial Structure, Growth, Fluctuations: Europe: Pre-1913, Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: Pre-1913, Regional and Urban History: Europe: Pre-1913, Cultural Economics: Religion

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