eprintid: 34907 rev_number: 31 eprint_status: archive userid: 1482 importid: 105 dir: disk0/00/03/49/07 datestamp: 2020-05-05 13:11:22 lastmod: 2023-06-08 08:17:25 status_changed: 2023-06-08 08:17:25 type: article succeeds: 25642 metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Auriol, Emmanuelle creators_name: Lassébie, Julie creators_name: Panin, Amma creators_name: Raiber, Eva creators_name: Seabright, Paul creators_idrefppn: 076085341 creators_idrefppn: 034345191 creators_affiliation: Toulouse School of Economics; Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse; University of Toulouse creators_affiliation: Toulouse School of Economics; Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse; University of Toulouse creators_halaffid: 1002422 creators_halaffid: 1002422 title: God insures those who pay? Formal insurance and religious offerings in Ghana ispublished: pub subjects: subjects_ECO abstract: This paper provides experimental support for the hypothesis that insurance can be a motive for religious donations. We randomize enrollment of members of a Pentecostal church in Ghana into a commercial funeral insurance policy. Then church members allocate money between themselves and a set of religious goods in a series of dictator games with significant stakes. Members enrolled in insurance give significantly less money to their own church compared to members that only receive information about the insurance. Enrollment also reduces giving towards other spiritual goods. We set up a model exploring different channels of religiously based insurance. The implications of the model and the results from the dictator games suggest that adherents perceive the church as a source of insurance and that this insurance is derived from beliefs in an interventionist God. Survey results suggest that material insurance from the church community is also important and we hypothesize that these two insurance channels exist in parallel. date: 2020-11 date_type: published publisher: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press id_number: 10.1093/qje/qjaa015 official_url: https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/by/auriol/ghana_religion_final.pdf faculty: tse divisions: tse keywords: economics of religion keywords: informal insurance keywords: charitable giving language: en has_fulltext: TRUE doi: 10.1093/qje/qjaa015 subjectsJEL: JEL_D14 subjectsJEL: JEL_G22 subjectsJEL: JEL_O12 subjectsJEL: JEL_O17 subjectsJEL: JEL_Z12 view_date_year: 2020 full_text_status: public publication: The Quarterly Journal of Economics volume: vol. 135 number: n° 4 pagerange: 1799-1848 refereed: TRUE issn: 0033-5533 oai_identifier: oai:tse-fr.eu:124236 harvester_local_overwrite: abstract harvester_local_overwrite: faculty harvester_local_overwrite: pending harvester_local_overwrite: creators_affiliation harvester_local_overwrite: official_url harvester_local_overwrite: number harvester_local_overwrite: volume harvester_local_overwrite: issn harvester_local_overwrite: creators_idrefppn harvester_local_overwrite: creators_halaffid harvester_local_overwrite: publication harvester_local_overwrite: publisher oai_lastmod: 2023-05-26T12:11:31Z oai_set: tse site: ut1 citation: Auriol, Emmanuelle , Lassébie, Julie, Panin, Amma, Raiber, Eva and Seabright, Paul (2020) God insures those who pay? Formal insurance and religious offerings in Ghana. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 135 (n° 4). pp. 1799-1848. document_url: https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/34907/1/ghana_religion_final.pdf