Religious Participation versus Shopping: What Makes People Happier?

Danny Cohen-Zada () and William Sander ()
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Danny Cohen-Zada: Ben Gurion University
William Sander: DePaul University

No 5198, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper, we first explore how an exogenous increase in the opportunity cost of religious participation affects individuals' religious participation and reported happiness using data from the General Social Survey. The exogenous shift in the cost of religious participation is a result of repealing of so-called blue laws which restrict retail activity on Sundays. We find that repealing blue laws causes a significant decline in the level of religious participation of white women and in their happiness. We do not observe any significant decline in reported happiness of other groups whose religious participation was not significantly affected by repeal. We also use repeal as an instrumental variable (IV) for church attendance and provide direct evidence that church attendance has a significant positive effect on happiness, especially for women.

Keywords: blue laws; religious participation; happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 K10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2010-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-law and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Journal of Law and Economics, 2011, 54 (4), 889-906

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