Believe or not believe: generalising the Azzi-Ehrenber model

• Autores: Alejandro Lorca Corrons, Adrian Gourlay, Pablo Brañas-Garza, Javier Rodero-Cosano
• Localización: Cuadernos de economía: Spanish Journal of Economics and Finance, ISSN 0210-0266, ISSN-e 2340-6704, Vol. 25, Nº. 69, 2002, págs. 33-44
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper presents an economic model of consumer behaviour within a religious framework. The individual is defined as being religious so, for him God exists with absolute certainty. We distinguish two separate aims of the individual: human welfare and spiritual welfare. Joint maximisation of these two targets subject to time and budgetary constraints yields a solution in which the optimal values of consumption and religiosity are obtained. Allowance is also given to the compulsory payment of a religious tax. We show that the shape of the interchange curve between these two optimal values depends upon the relative shapes of the human welfare and spiritual welfare functions.