Losing Their Religion -- by Richard Murphy, Shqiponja Telhaj

This paper studies whether governments can change social norms that constrain women’s education and work, and through which mechanism. Albania’s 1967 religion ban, which created the world’s first atheist state, provides an extreme natural experiment: religious practice was outlawed nationwide, but a 1948 classification of historic monuments determined which religious buildings remained standing. We find larger increases in female employment and schooling where no monument survived. The public visibility of the old religious order appears to be the mechanism: effects are largest where no monument remained, smaller with rural-only monuments, and smallest with urban monuments; they also decline as monument count rises, regardless of denomination. We establish how social norms can outlive formal authority. We would like to thank participants in numerous seminar audiences at Oxford University, London School of Economics, University College London, Zurich University, Baylor University, DIW Berlin, Padova University, St Andrews University, City University of New York, Bristol University, Birkbeck University of London, Surrey University, Bath University, York University, UC Davis, Duisburg University, NTNU University, University of Houston, and Luxembourg University, as well as conference participants at ASREC, IWAEE, and the Riinvest Institute conference in Prishtina, Kosova. Special thanks to Amarildo Harka, Camilo Anton Cepeda Francese, and Liri Kuci for their excellent research assistance, and to Chari Amalavoyal, Sam Arenberg, Gharad Bryan, Jean-Paul Carvalho, Uran Ferizi, Colin Green, Dan Hamermesh, Indrit Hoxha, Iraj Hashi, Iftikhar Hussain, David Jaeger, Noel Malcolm, Sam Marden, Guy Michaels, Nathan Nunn, Steve Pischke, John Van Reenen, Andreas Uthemann, Tom Vogl, Jonathan White, Lea Ypi, and Maurizio Zanardi for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks also to Afrim Krasniqi and Juliana Rexha for very helpful insights on Albania. This paper investigates the economic consequences of the banning of religion and does not take a stand on the ethics or morality of the policy. The authors received no external financial support specifically for this research and have no financial relationships or other potential conflicts of interest to disclose. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. In addition toworking papers, the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals—theNBER Reporter, theNBER Digest, theBulletin on Health, theBulletin on the Economics of Alzheimer's, and theBulletin on Entrepreneurship—as well asresearch spotlights, lectures, and panel videos.