TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Becker, Sascha O.
AU  - Woessmann, Ludger
        TI  - Not the Opium of the People: Income and Secularization in a Panel of Prussian Counties
        PY  - 2013/Jan/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 7151
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp7151
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - Prussian economic history
KW  - secularization
KW  - religion
        ER  -