One of the most interesting rational religious choice models is that presented by Durkin and Greeley in a 1991 article. The authors base the problem of uncertainty of religious choice on Pascal's Wager as a maximization problem of expected benefit and in faith as an insurance. The objective of the present article is to test the Durkin and Greeley hypothesis model for Brazil. Two dependent variables were used in the tests: religious attendance and faith, as in Durkin and Greeley's original model, and resulted in a highly significant relation. The belief in an after-life had a positive and significant impact on the dependent variable degree of faith. In the case of the tests of the third and last hypothesis of the model, that is, religious attendance and faith are positively related to the religious capital accumulated by the individual, ambiguous results were observed in relation to the confirmation of that hypothesis. An unexpected result turned up: the more conservative the individual showed himself or herself in relation to abortion, the lower was his or her degree of faith and lower was his or her religious frequency.

O objetivo deste trabalho é expor, com base na literatura de Economia da Religião, a premissa de racionalidade humana relacionada ao comportamento religioso. Serão abordados conceitos e definições da Economia da Religião, o objeto de interesse dessa disciplina, isto é, as questões com as quais se preocupa, além de discutir-se, sucintamente, a origem e a evolução da Economia da Religião. Discutem-se dois dos fundamentos teóricos da Economia da Religião: a Escolha Racional e a Teoria do Consumidor aplicada à religião. Como contribuição empírica, realizou-se um teste de um modelo de escolha religiosa empregando a técnica de Análise de Discriminante. Por último, serão discutidas as vantagens, objeções e críticas relativas à Teoria da Escolha Racional Religiosa.
This paper aim, based on the literature of Economics of Religion, to the premise of human rationality related to religious behavior. Are discussed concepts and definitions of the Economics of Religion, the object of interest in this discipline, ie, the most important issues, and discuss briefly the origin and evolution of discipline. Rational Choice and Consumer Theory applied to the Religion, two of the theoretical fundamentals of Economics of Religion are discussed. As an empirical contribution, we carried out a test of a model of religious choice employing the technique of Discriminant Analysis. Finally, we discuss the advantages, objections and criticisms regarding the Rational Choice Theory of Religion

Resumo: Este artigo trata da Teoria Econômica do Mercado Religioso. São apresentados conceitos extraídos desse paradigma, como commodity religiosa, oferta e demanda de bens e serviços religiosos, competição e monopólio no mercado religioso, dentre outros. Os graus de regulação no mercado religioso são discutidos. São mostradas as definições de organizações religiosas e seus tipos, conceitos de compensadores religiosos e as possíveis consequências da intervenção governamental no mercado religioso. A principal contribuição deste trabalho é uma revisão da literatura, com base nos resultados de testes empíricos, sobre o principal resultado da Teoria do Mercado Religioso, ou seja, a de que existe uma correlação positiva entre pluralismo religioso e frequência religiosa.Palavras-Chave: Religioso, mercado, pluralismo, monopólio, escolha.Abstract: This paper deals with the Religious Market Theory. It summarizes concepts relevant for this approach such as religious commodity, supply and demand for goods and religious services, competition and monopoly in religious market, and the degree of regulation in the religious market. Furthermore, the essay refers to definitions and typologies of religious organizations, religious compensators, and the possible consequences of government intervention in the religious market. The main contribution of this paper is a review of the empirical outcome of the relevant scientific literature interested in the positive correlation between religious pluralism and religious attendance.

Recebido em 12 de janeiro de 2012. Aceito em 17 de dezembro de 2012. (1975). Este modelo gerou diversos trabalhos empíricos vistando testar suas hipó-teses. Neste artigo, testam-se as hipóteses do modelo de Azzi e Ehrenberg, aplicando-se um modelo de regressão logística ordenada, com dados da Pesquisa Social Brasileira (PESB) de 2004, sobre frequência religiosa. De acordo com os resultados obtidos, indivíduos do sexo feminino tendem a frequentar mais serviços religiosos: além disso, a frequência religiosa apresentou aumento com a idade e verificou-se uma correlação negativa com a renda. Resumo O moderno marco inicial da Economia da Religião é o modelo de Azzi e Ehrenberg Palavras-ChaveEconomia da Religião, frequência religiosa, modelo de Azzi e Ehrenberg AbstractThe modern landmark for the Economics of Religion is the model proposed by Azzi and Ehrenberg in 1975 to religious frequency. This model has several empirical studies in the literature in order to test their hypotheses. In this article, we test the hypothesis of the model of Azzi and Ehrenberg applying an ordered logistic regression with survey data of the Brazilian Social Research (PESB) 2004 on religious attendance. According to our results, women tend to attend more religious services; religious frequency showed an increase with age and is negatively correlated with income.

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