Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Religion and the family : the case of the Amish

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Choy, James (2016) Religion and the family : the case of the Amish. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick. Department of Economics. Warwick economics research papers series (WERPS) (1114).

[img]
Preview
PDF
WRAP-twerp-1114-choy-2016.pdf - Other - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (1386Kb) | Preview
Official URL: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/resear...

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

I construct a model of religion as an institution that provides community enforcement of contracts within families. Family altruism implies that family members cannot commit to reporting broken contracts to the community, so the community must monitor contract performance as well as inflicting punishment. The community has less information than family members, and so community monitoring is inefficient. I provide evidence from a study of Amish institutions, including qualitative evidence from sociological accounts and quantitative evidence from a novel dataset covering nearly the entire Amish population of Holmes county, Ohio. I find that 1) Amish households are not unitary, 2) the Amish community helps to support families by inflicting punishments on wayward family members, 3) without the community Amish people have difficulty committing to punishing family members, and 4) Amish community membership strengthens family ties, while otherwise similar religious communities in which there is less need for exchange between family members have rules that weaken family ties. My model has implications for understanding selection into religious practice and the persistence of culture.

Item Type: Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BX Christian Denominations
H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
Divisions: Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Amish -- Economic aspects, Families, Economics -- Religious aspects
Series Name: Warwick economics research papers series (WERPS)
Publisher: University of Warwick. Department of Economics
Place of Publication: Coventry
ISSN: 0083-7350
Official Date: March 2016
Dates:
DateEvent
March 2016Published
Number: 1114
Number of Pages: 43
Institution: University of Warwick
Status: Not Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Open Access
Version or Related Resource: This paper also appears as CAGE working paper: No. 267

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics

twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us