Political Campaigns and Church Contributions
We combine a new dataset of weekly Catholic church donations with a new dataset of presidential-election campaign stops to explore the impact of stops on donations. We find that stops increase donations, with a campaign stop generating 2 percent more donations in the following week. Our results suggest that this effect is of short duration. Further, it does not appear to vary based on the political language used by the parish in its own church bulletins. However, the effect does appear to vary based on the religiosity of the candidates themselves, with Catholic candidates generating the largest increases.
Published Versions
Daniel Hungerman & Kevin Rinz & Tim Weninger & Chungeun Yoon, 2018. "Political campaigns and church contributions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, vol 155, pages 403-426. citation courtesy of