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Knocking on heaven's door? : Protestantism and suicide
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Becker, Sascha O. and Woessmann, Ludger (2011) Knocking on heaven's door? : Protestantism and suicide. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick. Dept. of Economics. Warwick economics research paper series (TWERPS), Vol.2011 (No.966).
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Official URL: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/resear...
Abstract
We model the effect of Protestant vs. Catholic denomination in an economic theory of suicide, accounting for differences in religious-community integration, views about man’s impact on God’s grace, and the possibility of confessing sins. We test the theory using a unique micro-regional dataset of 452 counties in 19th century Prussia, when religiousness was still pervasive. Our instrumental-variable model exploits the concentric dispersion of Protestantism around Wittenberg to circumvent selectivity bias. Protestantism had a substantial positive effect on suicide in 1816-21 and 1869-71. We address issues of bias from mental illness, misreporting, weather conditions, within-county heterogeneity, religious concentration, and gender composition.
Item Type: | Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper) | ||||
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Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BR Christianity H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Suicide -- Religious aspects, Suicide -- Econometric models, Suicide -- Prussia (Germany) -- History -- 19th century, Protestantism | ||||
Series Name: | Warwick economics research paper series (TWERPS) | ||||
Publisher: | University of Warwick. Dept. of Economics | ||||
Place of Publication: | Coventry | ||||
Official Date: | 2011 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | Vol.2011 | ||||
Number: | No.966 | ||||
Status: | Not Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||
Funder: | Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz | ||||
Version or Related Resource: | Becker, S.O. and Woessmann, L. (2011). Knocking on heaven’s door? Protestantism and suicide. Coventry: Centre for Economic Policy Research. (CEPR Discussion Paper no.8448). |
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