Does religiosity impact on volunteer work? : evidence from sexual scandals = ¿Impacta la religiosidad en el trabajo voluntario? : evidencia a partir de escándalos sexuales

Abstract

The evaluation of causal effects of Church attendance on volunteer work is a difficult task as Church attendance is potentially endogenous in a model of volunteer work. To overcome this identification problem, we exploit a natural experiment: scandals of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church of the United States. We find that Church attendance increases the probability of doing voluntary work. A possible mechanism through which this effect may be operating is the increase of social networks as a result of Church attendance.