In what circumstances will a church become more liberal and less strict? That is the
question addressed in new research by Pedro Pita Barros and Nuno Garoupa,
published in the latest issue of the Economic Journal. Their analysis suggests that:
?? Dominant (or ‘monopolistic’) churches like the Church of England tend to be more
liberal than religious denominations that are operating in highly competitive markets,
e.g. the main churches in Southern Europe, Brazil and the United States. Religious
‘markets’ with significant ‘barriers to entry’ (perhaps due to government regulations
or to lack of capacity - e.g. low population) protect dominant denominations and
alleviate competitive pressures.
?? A more liberal trend in church strictness can be the outcome of a change from
virtually compulsory to voluntary membership, and not necessarily a consequence
of a change of individual preferences. Once individuals may freely choose between
religious membership and non-participation in the religious market, a pressure for
liberalising church strictness is created.
?? But a liberal trend creates tension with more conservative affiliates. Eventually,
more conservative affiliates create a new religious denomination (e.g. Christian
sects) and thus limit the ability of a mainstream denomination to become more
liberal. The result is that the number of denominations in the religious market tends
to increase and thus more people may in fact participate in religion than when there
is only one denomination.
Many commentators talk about the secularisation movement and how religious
behaviour and beliefs are becoming less important in the modern world, particularly in
the West. The collapse of religious practice, first in Southern Europe in the late 1970s
and then in Ireland and Poland in the 1990s, seems to be evidence of that. Yet
empirical research has repeatedly proven secularisation to be false: in the United
States, for example, the religious market is, in fact, booming.
This research provides a new explanation for a well-documented apparent contradiction
between the trend to secularisation and the growth of religious movements. The
analysis focuses on the interplay between the distribution of preferences for church
strictness across the population and the degree of competitiveness of the market for
religion. It also explains why being a conservative church (e.g. the Roman Catholic
Church) could be the optimal response to the trade-off between trying to keep more
liberal affiliates and risking schism with the more conservative affiliates.
The Roman Catholic Church faces more competitive pressure than most denominations
because it is present in multiple markets around the world, whereas most
denominations are local or are present in fewer markets. The Roman Catholic Church
cannot be liberal in one country and very conservative in another. The consequence is
that the Roman Catholic Church is being pushed to become more liberal in Western
Europe, but the effect is offset by the growing (potential or actual) competition from
stricter sects in the United States and South America. At the same time, the Roman
Catholic Church has developed various strict monastic orders and less strict lay
movements in order to alleviate this tension.
The research also provides a new interpretation for historical events. For example, it
suggests a novel explanation for the great East-West 1054 schism. The Western
Catholic Church was by then a monopoly whereas the Eastern Catholic Church was
faced with stiff competition from Muslims and local Greek minor religious movements.
The researchers argue that while the West could embrace a conservative programme
since nobody really disputed the authority of the Pope, the East could not do so without
risking the loss of affiliates and vassals. Thus, separation was inevitable as a result of
two completely different ‘market structures’.
The researchers take the view that religious denominations are benevolent and care
about aggregate welfare of their members. Nevertheless, they cannot become less
strict, as many members would like, due to competition. The rationale is that more
liberal individuals tend to leave the religious market rather than create another
denomination, but more conservative affiliates pose a more serious challenge because
they may, in fact, create a new denomination.
ENDS
Notes for Editors: 'An Economic Theory of Church Strictness’ by Pedro Pita Barros
and Nuno Garoupa is published in the July 2002 issue of the Economic Journal.
The authors are at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, and Research Fellows
of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.
For Further Information: contact Pedro Pita Barros on +351-21-380-1600 (fax: +351-
21-388-6073; email: ppbarros@fe.unl.pt); or RES Media Consultant Romesh
Vaitilingam on 0117-983-9770 or 07768-661095 (email: romesh@compuserve.com).