TY  - JOUR
AU  - Dills, Angela K
AU  - Hernández-Julián, Rey
TI  - Religiosity and State Welfare
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 19169
PY  - 2013
Y2  - June 2013
DO  - 10.3386/w19169
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w19169
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w19169.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Angela K. Dills
Western Carolina University
1 University Way
Cullowhee, NC 28723
E-Mail: angeladills@gmail.com

Rey Hernández-Julián
Department of Economics, CB 77
Metropolitan State University of Denver
Denver, CO 80217-3362
Tel: 303.556.4912
E-Mail: rherna42@msudenver.edu
M1  - published as Angela K. Dills, Rey Hernández-Julián. "Religiosity and State Welfare," in Daniel Hungerman and Daniel L. Chen, editors, "Economics of Religion and Culture" Elsevier, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Volume 104 (2014)

M3  - presented at "Economics of Religion and Culture", March 8-9, 2013
AB  - The Catholic sex abuse scandals reduced both membership and religiosity in the Catholic Church. Because government spending on welfare may substitute for the religious provision of social services, we consider whether this plausibly exogenous decline in religiosity affected several measures of the public taste towards government spending on welfare between 1990 and 2008. In places where there were more scandals, individuals state a preference for less government provision of social services. In contrast, a higher level of abuse is also associated with an increase in voting for Democratic candidates for President and state legislatures, and an increase in per capita government welfare spending, although this increase is insufficient to replace the decrease in Catholic-provided charity.
ER  -