The Effects of Public Religious Funding on Human Capital and Religiosity in France
This project studies how public funding towards religion broadly impacts human capital formation and religious practices. Alsace-Lorraine, located in the Grand Est region of France, serves as a quasi-natural experiment in which laws that fund religious activities were maintained while the rest of the country passed a secularization law in 1905. The concordat remained applicable in Alsace-Lorraine because the area was under German territory control at the time. Williams uses variation in public religious funding within France to analyze how religious funding from the state affects outcomes relating to cultural identity, clergy participation, and preferences for secular versus religious education.
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