Religious Market Theory vs. Secularization: The Role of ReligiousDiversity Revisited

Iannaccone’s (1991) seminal paper assigns basic market principles to the market for religion. Ina competitive market with high religious diversity the level of overall religiosity should increase. TheSecularization Hypothesis suggests that the establishment of new churches casts doubt on the existingreligion, which results in a reduction of religiosity. The present paper reinvestigates this relationshipusing a broader measure of religiosity than church attendance and calculating a more accurate indexof religious diversity...