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Money, religion and revolution

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Abstract

How do money and religion affect the support for revolt in nations? We take a different approach from previous studies to provide an answer by using micro-data based on surveys of revolutionary tastes of over 100,000 people living in 61 countries from 1981–1997. Controlling for personal characteristics and country fixed effects, a 4 percentage point decrease in the GDP growth rate increases the probability of a person wanting to revolt by 2.3 percentage points. This rise can be offset by belonging to a religion which lowers the probability of being revolutionary by between 1.8 and 2.7 percentage points (compared to non-religious people). The effect is concentrated amongst people who identify themselves as being Christian. By comparison, Muslims have similar chances of wanting to revolt as non-religious people.

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Correspondence to Silvia Pezzini.

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MacCulloch, R., Pezzini, S. Money, religion and revolution. Economics of Governance 8, 1–16 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10101-006-0014-z

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