Work

The Economics of Faith: Using an Apocalyptic Prophecy to Elicit Religious Beliefs in the Field

Year: 2012

Type: preprint

Abstract: We model religious faith as a “demand for beliefs, ” following the logic of the Pascalian wager. We show how standard experimental interventions linking financial consequences to falsifiable religious statements can elicit and characterize beliefs. We implemented this approach with members of a group that expected the “End of the World” to occur on May 21, 2011 by varying monetary prizes payable before and after May 21st. To our knowledge, this is the first incentivized elicitation of religious beliefs ever conducted. The results suggest that the members held extreme, sincere beliefs that were unresponsive to experimental manipulations in price.

Source: RePEc: Research Papers in Economics

Authors: Ned Augenblick, Jesse M. Cunha, Ernesto Dal Bó, Justin M. Rao

Institutions: University of California, Berkeley, Government of the United States of America, Naval Postgraduate School, Microsoft (United States)

Language: English

Topic: Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

Subfield: General Decision Sciences

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W3122885137

Cites: 13

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Related to: 10