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)).

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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)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BR Christianity H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare
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
Date:	2011
Volume:	Vol.2011
Number:	No.966
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
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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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/41111

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