ECONOMICS OF SAINTHOOD (By Barro et al.)

[Román Culebro Martínez]

ECONOMICS_OF_SAINTHOOD_BARRO.pdf

"Our goal is to apply economic reasoning to understand the Church’s choices on numbers and characteristics of saints, gauged by location and socioeconomic attributes of the persons designated as blessed. (...) In the present study, we analyze determinants of rates of canonization and beatification and how these rates varied by pope, including an impact from the cumulated stock of beatifieds who have not yet been canonized. We plan to investigate how the probability of being chosen depends on individual characteristics and whether these relationships have changed over time. Notably, we want to see whether the regional distributions of blessed persons respond to the sizes of Catholic constituencies and to competition from alternative religion providers. This competition is intense with Protestant churches since the Reformation and with Evangelical faiths in recent decades."