The Effect of Religious Denomination on Wealth: Who Were the Truly Blessed?

Abstract

The wealth of probated decedents from late-nineteenth-century and early-twentiethcentury Ontario is analyzed for evidence of the impact of religious affiliation on the level of wealth and rate of wealth accumulation. After controlling for age, birthplace, occupation, gender, urbanization, and other factors, the results suggest that relative to Anglicans, the wealth of Methodists and Roman Catholics was significantly lower. Moreover, when religious denomination and birthplace are interacted, Canadianborn Anglicans emerge as the dominant wealth group, while the English-born of any denomination and Methodists of any birthplace seem to fare the worst. When wealthage profiles are examined by denomination, Baptists have the steepest profiles, followed by Anglicans and Presbyterians. The data do support the hypothesis that religious affiliation, particularly when interacted with birthplace, has an impact on wealth, though the exact nature of the mechanism is unclear.Wealth maketh many friends. (Proverbs 19:4) He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. (Proverbs 28:20) The economic effect of religion is of substantial interest in economic and social science research. In his seminal survey of the economics of religion, Laurence Iannaccone (1998) classifies work on the economics of religion into three areas: the analysis of religious behavior from an economic perspec-

Anti-Irish Job Discrimination circa 1880

“…One exception is Timothy G. Conley and David W. Galenson (1998), who find that in 1860 immigrants living in eastern cities, including the Irish, tended to be less wealthy than the otherwise comparable native-born. Livio Di Matteo (2007) reports similar results for Irish Catholics in Ontario, Canada, circa 1890.…”