[lbo-talk] great moments in economics

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed May 25 16:09:54 PDT 2011


[from a paper on the economics of religion by Laurence R. Iannaccone]

Within this provocative model, individuals allocate their time and goods among religious and secular commodities so as to maximize lifetime and afterlife utility. Azzi and Ehrenberg posit "afterlife consumption" as the primary goal of religious participation, an assumption that implies a strong restriction on the way religious commodities enter household utility functions. Formally, households are assumed to maximize an intertemporal utility function which depends upon both (secular) consumption, Zt, in each period and expected afterlife consumption, A...



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