Religion as an investment: comparing the contributions and volunteer frequency among Christians, Buddhists, and folk religionists.

• Author: Tao, Hung-Lin

1. Introduction

   The development of religious economics has taken place only very slowly, as pointed out by Iannaccone (1998). It took 200 years to produce the second religious economics publication (Azzi and Ehrenberg 1975) following the first by Adam Smith (1759). Azzi and Ehrenberg (1975) specified a mathematical model that makes allowance for afterlife consumption. Their model shows that the religious activities participated in by an individual increase with his non-labor income and age (if the salvation motive is more important than the consumption motive), and decrease with his market wage. The postulations of their theoretical model were verified by their empirical analysis. However, religious activities consist not only of allocating time, but also making monetary contributions. Sullivan (1985) simultaneously investigated the determination of church attendance and contributions. He verified the existence of a positive relationship between contributions and income, and a U-shaped relationship between income and church attendance.

   Most religions promise a better afterlife. While the existing literature has verified the existence of a number of fundamental relationships between religionists' characteristics and their behavior in terms of attending church and contributing to church activities, these verifications have all been within the same religion, or at most, within the "different" religions with similar afterlife promises. Though different denominations were considered in Azzi and Ehrenberg (1975), those denominations were within the same religion, in particular in terms of the afterlife rewards they offered their believers. This then raises a question: Does a religion with a better afterlife reward induce its believers to be more fervent? In other words, ceteris paribus, will a religion with a higher afterlife return be more competitive in the religious market? The behavior of adherents of different religions with a distinct afterlife reward has not yet been investigated within the context of economic incentives. Indeed, if a religion that promises more rewards in the afterlife induces its adherents to devote more time and to contribute more money to their religion, the religion will be more sustainable and more able to attract adherents. If this is true, it will be argued that religious contributions and voluntary service may be regarded as an extended investment of "human capital" in the next life, rather than merely some psychological behavior. If this is so, in terms of attempting to explain religious activities, economics might be no less important than psychology or sociology. A positive answer to this question enables economics, in addition to psychology and sociology, to become an essential element in analyzing religious activities.

   Furthermore, religionists with the same income or of similar age but with different degrees of belief in the existence of a promised afterlife are not likely to devote the same amount of time or contribute the same amount in terms of donations to their religions. In other words, the extent of belief in the existence of an afterlife is an important factor in investigating how the afterlife's rewards affect the religionists' behavior within the same religion. Unfortunately, this fact has been ignored in most existing studies. As argued in the last paragraph, the confirmation of different kinds of behavior in terms of contributions and volunteer frequency across religions demonstrates that religious activities are at least in part a reflection of an afterlife investment. This is like cross-sectional (across religions) evidence that economics is a useful tool as one analyzes religious activities. Similarly, if, within the same religion, religionists' contributions and volunteer frequency are strongly related to the extent of their beliefs, we will have "longitudinal" (within religion) evidence. If religionists do respond to economic incentives, this will imply that the fundamental microeconomics in which the present-life utility is maximized will have to be revised to take the afterlife into account, particularly in the case of those religionists. In regard to the authorities, when religious contributions and volunteer frequency are related to charitable purposes, for religionists to respond to an afterlife reward implies that an economy without religion or that is dominated by a religion with a low afterlife reward must spend more on social welfare programs.

   Accordingly, the probability of believing in the existence of an afterlife and the diversity of religions, at least in terms of their afterlife rewards, are crucial when exploring the behavior of religionists. To sum up, unless we know the probabilities of religionists believing in the existence of an afterlife, or have data for religionists across different religions with distinct afterlife rewards, our studies are unable to completely verify whether the promised rewards of an afterlife affect the behavior of religionists. More importantly, we cannot ensure that economics is an essential element in explaining religious activities.

   Moreover, rewards based on contributions and the time devoted to religion usually consist of the enormous but uncertain rewards in the afterlife and certain but not enormous rewards in the present life. The former, for example, promises an eternal life in the afterlife, while the latter provides the positive establishment of a social network and an improvement in family relationships. Are these rewards, being realized in the current life, also as important as the explanation of the religionists' behavior? Without taking these present-life rewards into account, the effects of afterlife rewards are likely to be overstated.

   The purpose of this study is to investigate these questions. Protestants/Catholics, Buddhists, and Taiwanese folk religionists are chosen because each of these three kinds of religionists adhere to promised afterlife rewards that differ significantly from each other in terms of magnitude, and are also the most popular religions in the data-collecting area Taiwan. (1) According to John 3:16 in the Bible: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." This passage clearly states that the afterlife reward for a Christian is eternal life after death. By contrast, the afterlife reward for a devotional Buddhist is only a better initial start to the next life. According to the doctrines of Buddhism, the death of a living being is not the end for this creature. The living being will take on the same or another life form, which is dependent on the performance of their present life. The rule is: "For a good cause, a good result; for an evil cause, an evil result." The Wheel of Life will repeat over and over again. (2)

   In the case of Taiwanese folk religions, there are actually no substantial rewards in the afterlife resulting from religious behavior in the present life. (3) Folk religionists believe that the "soul" lives after a person's flesh dies. The soul becomes a good ghost that protects its descendants and offers good luck to them, provided that its living descendants worship it and provide offerings to it. (4) The soul turns into an evil ghost that attacks people if it does not have descendants who worship it and provide offerings to it. (5) The afterlife of a person does not depend on the person's religious behavior in the present life, but on whether it has filial descendants. However, in folk religions there are many different gods in different temples. These gods protect people and provide good luck to religionists who worship them. Hence, folk religionists worship their ancestors at home and worship the gods in temples. Therefore, folk religionists still have a motive to contribute to temples in return for a better life in the present. It is noteworthy that there is a lack of motivation on the part of folk religionists to improve their afterlife.

   Obviously, the returns promised by these three religions are completely distinct, and, of course, eternal life in heaven (for Protestants/Catholics) has much greater significance than a better life form (for Buddhists) in the next life, and a better life form in the next life is better than nothing (for folk religionists). Therefore, it is expected that, given the same degree of devotionalism, Protestants/Catholics are more willing to devote more resources to their religion in their present lives, when compared with Buddhists and folk religionists in their present lives. Likewise, Buddhists are more willing to devote their resources to their religion than are folk religionists. This is the hypothesis that will be tested in this study. In addition, the extent of belief in the existence of an afterlife will also be tested.

   The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 formulates a theoretical model to explain how time and expenditure are allocated between the present life and investment in the afterlife. Section 3 describes the sources of data and the empirical model. Section 4 presents the empirical analysis. The time devoted and the contributions to the different religions and within the same religion will be explored. In addition, the effects of certain rewards in the present life and uncertain rewards in the afterlife will also be investigated. Since the religionists' behavior might, apart from being considered an investment in the afterlife, be a result of their doctrines and worship process, section 5 further verifies whether the behavior of the religionists is due to the religions' promise of an afterlife. Section 6 concludes.

2. The Theoretical Model

   The utility function consists of two parts. The first part is the utility of the present life, [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], which is determined by the resources allocated to activities other than religion as well as by those...