Religion and Environment in Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics

A large body of literature is concerned with understanding the determinants of individual- and country-level differences in environmental attitudes, behaviors, and policies.

One important factor underlying such differences that has been put forward and explored in this literature is religion.

This chapter provides the first comprehensive review of this literature and its contributions so far.

It provides a summary of the conceptual discussions and empirical evidence on the religion-environment relationship.

Additionally, the chapter presents evidence on the implications of religious affiliations, beliefs, and participation for environmental attitudes and behaviors and influence exerted by religious and political elites upon the environmental attitudes of religious individuals.

The chapter provides an account of the empirical strategies adopted in the literature so far, focusing on the challenges associated with establishing causal relationships. Some research gaps and promising directions for future research are outlined.

This chapter features in Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics