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Failed Secular Revolutions: Religious Belief, Competition, And Extremism, Jean-Paul Carvalho, Jared Rubin, Michael Sacks

ESI Working Papers

All advanced economies have undergone secular revolutions in which religious belief and institutions have been subordinated to secular forms of authority. There are, however, numerous examples of failed secular transitions. To understand these failures, we present a religious club model with endogenous entry and cultural transmission of religious beliefs. A spike in the demand for religious belief, due for example to a negative economic shock, induces a new and more extreme organization to enter the religious market and exploit the dissatisfaction of highly religious types with the religious incumbent. The eect is larger where institutional secularization is more advanced, for …