Citation

Discussion Paper Details

Please find the details for DP8448 in an easy to copy and paste format below:

Full Details   |   Bibliographic Reference

Full Details

Title: Knocking on Heaven?s Door? Protestantism and Suicide

Author(s): Sascha O. Becker and Ludger Woessmann

Publication Date: June 2011

Keyword(s): Prussian economic history, Religion and suicide

Programme Area(s): Labour Economics

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.

For full details and related downloads, please visit: https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=8448

Bibliographic Reference

Becker, S and Woessmann, L. 2011. 'Knocking on Heaven?s Door? Protestantism and Suicide'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=8448