Religion and Innovation

In earlier work we identified a robust negative association between religiosity and patents per capita, holding across countries as well as US states. In this paper we relate 11 indicators of individual openness to innovation (e.g., attitudes toward science and technology, new versus old ideas, chan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American economic review 2015-05, Vol.105 (5), p.346-351
Main Authors: Bénabou, Roland, Ticchi, Davide, Vindigni, Andrea
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Children
Disruptive innovation
Economic models
Economic statistics
Economic theory
Education
Emerging technology
Global economy
Innovation
Innovations
International
Judaism
Literacy
Manycountries
MORAL VALUES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
Motivation
Political attitudes
R&D
Religion
Religiosity
Religious beliefs
Research & development
Risk aversion
Science
Science and technology
Scientific belief
Social classes
Studies
Technological innovation
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Summary:In earlier work we identified a robust negative association between religiosity and patents per capita, holding across countries as well as US states. In this paper we relate 11 indicators of individual openness to innovation (e.g., attitudes toward science and technology, new versus old ideas, change, risk taking, agency, imagination, and independence in children) to 5 measures of religiosity, including beliefs and attendance. We use five waves of the World Values Survey and control for sociodemographics, country and year fixed effects. Across the 52 regressions, greater religiosity is almost uniformly associated to less favorable views of innovation, with high significance.
ISSN:0002-8282
1944-7981
DOI:10.1257/aer.p20151032