Innovation attitudes and religiosity

Abstract

The impact of religiosity on innovation has been a topic of great interest among scholars, yet its inherent complexity and endogeneity render empirical analysis a challenging task. In order to untangle these issues, our study employs a multi-faceted approach, drawing on various measures of religiosity and implementing an instrumental variable strategy within an individual-level innovation framework. We analyse the effect of religiosity on individual attitudes that are either favourable or unfavourable to innovation, capturing different aspects of an individual’s propensity to innovate. The results strongly suggest that each measure of religiosity has a somewhat negative effect on innovation attitudes. The robustness checks and sensitivity analyses support the main findings. We propose three channels from religion to innovation: time allocation, the fear of uncertainty, and conventional roles reinforced by religion.