Game Theory, Culture, and Religion

Teppo Felin:

I recently ran into some interesting inter-disciplinary research by Michael McBride (UC Irvine); research at the nexus of game theory, culture and religion. Some examples:

• A piece on the relationship between wealth and religiosity: “Religious Market Competition in a Richer World.”

• An article on ”Religious Pluralism and Religious Participation: A Game-Theoretic Approach.”

• And, a recent article from Rationality & Society on norms, structure, and participation in the LDS Church.

I only briefly read/skimmed the above pieces for their central thesis and approach; all of them quite nicely straddle economics and sociology. Here’s McBride’s website with additional papers on networks, culture, public goods etc.

I've met Michael McBride at a number of conferences and he is engaging in some great economics of religion work. Highly recommended!