Food beliefs and food supply chains: The impact of religion and religiosity in Israel

This paper demonstrates that religion and religiosity affect norms, which affect food consumption patterns and production. Heterogeneity and asymmetric information lead to multiple certification channels as well as multiple supply chains. Major supply chains may address multiple constituencies that are secular or less religious. Technological change affects norms and thus the food system. We obtain these results by analyzing the food systems for meat products in Israel where there are three religions – Jews, Muslims, and Christians – and people assign themselves three levels of religiosity – secular, conservative, and orthodox. Israel has multiple Kosher and Halal certifiers and several specialized supermarket chains for orthodox groups. Its main supermarket chains serve secular and some conservative segments. The immigration of secular Jews from Russia led to the proliferation of non-Kosher supply chains and products, and increased consumption of pork. New technologies and higher incomes led to emergence of fast food chains serving orthodox Jews that had previously tended to eat at home.     

THE EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS OF RELIGION

This paper surveys the experimental economics approach to the study of religion. The field has a place in the context of the scientific study of religion generally and the social psychology of religion in particular, but employs distinct economic methods which promise new and different insights. In particular, certain features of the experimental approach as used by economists such as incentive compatibility are particularly appropriate for studying the effect of religion on individual behaviour. The paper discusses results obtained so far in terms of two roles of religion in shaping individual behaviour, that is, as a social group identifier and as a set of values.     

Some Insights on Religion from Public Goods Economics

This paper provides a theoretical discussion on what analytical insight is gained by viewing religion as both a pure and impure public good. It suggests that organized religion converts a public good into an excludable club good and can be viewed as providing both an access regime for this club good as well as acting as an intermediary. Interestingly, this drives a wedge between the ardent and moderate adherents of a religion. It also presents an analysis of trust in social relationships when organized religion works to provide a credible signal of trustworthiness.     

Food-leftover sharing intentions of consumers: An extension of the theory of planned behavior

The study is grounded on the premise that the food-leftover sharing practice can simultaneously contribute to resolving the problems of food shortage and food wastage. The primary aim of the study was to identify the factors influencing consumer intentions to share food leftovers. The study was conducted in four stages. First, a comprehensive literature analysis was done to identify the relevant factors and underlying relationships among them. Second, a research instrument was designed, and pretesting was conducted to check the appropriateness of the research instrument with the study context. Third, a pilot study was performed on the 194 respondents to check the dimensionality of the study scales. Four, the final data was collected and analyzed from a sample of 331 (collected through offline and online modes) using structural equation modeling in AMOS 24. The pilot and final study data were collected from New Delhi (An Indian metropolitan city). The study findings suggest that the TPB constructs i.e. subjective norms, attitude, and perceived behavior control influence consumer intentions to share food leftovers. Additionally, religiosity, moral obligation, and environmental concern were observed to be the predictors of attitude toward the practice of food-leftover sharing. This study offers food leftover sharing as a solution to food waste generation and hence, aligned with the sustainable development goals (SDG -12) i.e., responsible consumption and production.     

Religion,discrimination and trust across three cultures

We propose that religion impacts trust and trustworthiness in ways that depend on how individuals are socially identified and connected. Religiosity and religious affiliation may serve as markers for statistical discrimination. Further, affiliation to the same religion may enhance group identity, or affiliation irrespective of creed may lend social identity, and in turn induce taste-based discrimination. Religiosity may also relate to general prejudice. We test these hypotheses across three culturally diverse countries. Participants׳ willingness to discriminate, beliefs of how trustworthy or trusting others are, as well as actual trust and trustworthiness are measured incentive compatibly. We find that interpersonal similarity in religiosity and affiliation promote trust through beliefs of reciprocity. Religious participants also believe that those belonging to some faith are trustworthier, but invest more trust only in those of the same religion—religiosity amplifies this effect. Across non-religious categories, whereas more religious participants are more willing to discriminate, less religious participants are as likely to display group biases.     

The impact of religiosity on earnings quality: International evidence from the banking sector

We examine the impact of religiosity on earnings quality, utilising a global sample of 1283 listed banks headquartered in 39 countries and covering the period 2002–2018. Using instrumental variables two-stage least squares regressions, we demonstrate that religiosity has a significant positive impact on banks’ earnings quality. We further show that the impact of religiosity becomes more pronounced among banks headquartered in countries where religion is an important element of national identity and in countries with weak legal protection. We show that the effects of religiosity are more intense during the global financial crisis period. Overall, these findings support the notion that high religiosity tends to reduce unethical activities by managers and can function as an alternative control mechanism for minimising agency costs. Our empirical investigation is robust to alternative model and sample specifications.     

The growing popularity of spiritual brands: What drives purchase intent?

In this study, we investigate the reason for the growing popularity of FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) household products branded, promoted and sold in India by local spiritual leaders. We find that religiosity and normative community pressure are important purchase drivers for such products. Surprisingly, pragmatism in the presence of normative pressure also contributes to demand. We argue that self-identity theory provides a contextualized explanation in association with social identity theory to explain the influence of normative pressure on increased demand. The results of the study suggest that integrating social and self-identity theories provides a fuller insight into consumer behaviour in a complex social context.     

Consumer religious commitment's influence on ecocentric attitudes and behavior

A host of environmental issues are now of concern to many consumers, though efforts by marketing practitioners, researchers, and public policy officials to affect behavioral change among consumers have been marginal. Further, research investigating the influence of consumers' general religiosity as an antecedent to ecocentric attitudes and behaviors yields mixed results. In this study, the authors examine the antecedent role of a specific form of religiosity, intrapersonal religious commitment, on a specific environmental worldview, ecocentric attitude, and six wide-ranging environmental consumer behaviors from a socio-psychological viewpoint.     

The Effect of Religion on Accounting Conservatism

This paper investigates whether religiosity, a key informal institutional factor, strongly influences a firm’s adoption of accounting conservatism. Using a sample from the U.S. stock market, we find that firms located in geographic areas with higher levels of religiosity tend to exhibit greater accounting conservatism. Further tests show that this effect is through the channel of engaging managers in activities that emphasize firms’ long-term growth, concern stakeholder interests, and avoid the risk of litigation. Moreover, we demonstrate that it is the religious environment in an area rather than the personal religious belief of a CEO that drives our baseline results. Finally, a supplementary test suggests that religiosity increases not only the conditional (ex post) conservatism of firms but their unconditional (ex ante) conservatism as well.     

Pay or pray? The impact of charitable subsidies on religious attendance

The economic argument for subsidizing charitable giving relies on the positive externalities of charitable activities, particularly from the religious institutions that are the largest recipients of giving. But the net external effects of subsidies to religious giving will also depend on a potentially important indirect effect as well: impacts on religious participation. Religious participation can be either a complement to, or a substitute with, the level of charitable giving. Understanding these spillover effects of charitable giving may be quite important, given the existing observational literature that suggests that religiosity is a major determinant of well-being among Americans. In this paper, I investigate the impact of charitable subsidies on a measure of religious participation, attendance at religious services. I do so by using data over three decades from the General Social Survey, as well as confirming the impact of such subsidies on religious giving using the Consumer Expenditure Survey. I find strong evidence that religious giving and religious attendance are substitutes: larger subsidies to charitable giving lead to more religious giving, but less religious attendance, with an implied elasticity of attendance with respect to religious giving of as much as −1.1. These results have important implications for the debate over charitable subsidies. They also serve to validate economic models of religious participation.