Belonging, believing, bonding, and behaving: the relationship between religion and business ownership at the country level.

ABSTRACT: This cross-country study adopts a competing theories approach in which both a value perspective and a social capital perspective are used to understand the relation between religion and a country's business ownership rate. We distinguish among four dimensions of religion: belonging to a religious denomination, believing certain religious propositions, bonding to religious practices, and behaving in a religious manner. An empirical analysis of data from 30 OECD countries with multiple data points per country covering the period 1984-2010 suggests a positive relationship between religion and business ownership based on those dimensions that reflect the internal aspects of religiosity (i.e., believing and behaving). We do not observe a significant association for those dimensions that reflect

SUBMITTER: Hoogendoorn B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5253717 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature