%0 Report
        %A Becker, Sascha O.
%A Woessmann, Ludger
        %T Not the Opium of the People: Income and Secularization in a Panel of Prussian Counties
        %D 2013
        %8 2013 Jan
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 7151
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp7151
        %X The interplay between religion and the economy has occupied social scientists for long. We construct a unique panel of income and Protestant church attendance for six waves of up to 175 Prussian counties spanning 1886-1911. The data reveal a marked decline in church attendance coinciding with increasing income. The cross-section also shows a negative association between income and church attendance. But the association disappears in panel analyses, including first-differenced models of the 1886-1911 change, panel models with county and time fixed effects, and panel Granger-causality tests. The results cast doubt on causal interpretations of the religion-economy nexus in Prussian secularization.
        %K Prussian economic history
%K secularization
%K religion