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Club Models, Church Competition, and Religious Regulations

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Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics

Abstract

Although economists have studied religion for many decades, most of them addressed it as an independent variable explaining various economic phenomena. At the same time, modeling and making sense of religious behavior per se (religion as dependent variable) has been popular among sociologists, anthropologists, and neuroscientists. Nevertheless, economists have gradually developed a strong interest in religious behavior as well. They proposed theories, models, and empirical analyses of religious behavior. This scholarship has become embedded with sociological studies of religion. Depending on the discipline (and period in history), this scholarship was labeled as “the rational choice approach,” “the religious economy approach,” “theory of religious markets,” and “the supply-side explanation.” Even though the ultimate goal of this scholarship is to make sense of individual religiosity, it usually starts the analysis from the suppliers of religious services (churches, parishes, clergy, and even cults). This scholarship shows that information about motives, resources, and incentives of organized religious groups explains the individual religious behavior of laypeople. Economists and sociologists have reinforced their theories and findings. Therefore, this chapter uses the term “social science” to include scholars from different fields. This chapter reviews a brief history and main pillars of the supply-side theories of religion ending with a discussion of possible future directions.

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Acknowledgments

Responsible Section Editor: Olga Popova .The chapter has benefitted from the valuable comments of the editors, anonymous referees, and Dr. Tornike Metreveli. This chapter benefits from the ongoing research of Orthodox Christian countries during the Covid-19 pandemic. This research is supported by the grant “Coronavirus: A New Test(ament) of Orthodox Christianity.” The grant program is a part of the project “Promotion of Cooperation in the Humanities and Social Sciences between Switzerland and the States of the Black Sea Region” funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation. There is no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kyiv School of Economics, Center for Sociological Research, Kyiv, Ukraine

    Tymofii Brik

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  1. Tymofii Brik
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Correspondence to Tymofii Brik .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. UNU-MERIT & Princeton University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Klaus F. Zimmermann

Section Editor information

  1. Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS), Regensburg, Germany

    Olga Popova

  2. CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

    Olga Popova

  3. Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation

    Olga Popova

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Brik, T. (2022). Club Models, Church Competition, and Religious Regulations. In: Zimmermann, K.F. (eds) Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_257-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_257-1

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