人民的鸦片?宗教和经济态度

People’s Opiate?A Religious or Economic Attitude

自韦伯以降,宗教对人们经济态度的影响问题就一直争论不休,但现有的证据大多都基于跨国性的研究,而这些研究也因其他制度因素的不同而混乱不堪。通过对各国特定效应加以控制,我们利用世界价值观念调查项目来确定宗教信仰的强度和经济态度之间的关系。我们对有关合作、政府、职业女性、法规、节俭和市场经济等几个方面的经济态度进行了研究,还对不同的宗教派别进行了区分,区分的标准是该宗教是否在某国具有主导性地位。结果发现,一般地说,“好”的经济态度与宗教信仰有关,这里的“好”是指有益于经济增长和人均收入的增加。另一方面,信仰宗教的人种族主义倾向更强,且不赞同女性就业,但这些作用因宗教派别而异。总的来说,基督教对形成有益于经济增长的态度具有正面作用。

Since Max Weber. there has been an active debate on the impact of religion on people＇s economic attitudes. Much of the existing evidence, however, is based on cross-country studies in which this impact is confounded by differences in other institutional factors, We use the World Values Surveys to identify the relationship between intensity of religious beliefs and economic attitudes, controlling for country fixed effects. We study several economic attitudes toward cooperation, the government, working women, legal rules, thriftiness, and the market economy. We also distinguish across religious denominations, differentiating on whether a religion is dominant in a country. We find that on average, religious beliefs are associated with ＂good＂ economic attitudes, where ＂good＂ is defined as conducive to higher par capita income and growth. Yet religious people tend to be more racist and less favorable with respect to working women. These effects differ across religious denominations. Overall. we find that Christian religions are more positively associated with attitudes conducive to economic growth.