Mamta Bhardwaj
Paper Title “Economic Underpinnings of Religious Giving”
Abstract
Most
religious teachings encourage philanthropic behaviour and by virtue of the same
propel religious giving by individuals. Among Hindus, giving in general
referred to as ‘dana’ is supposed to be done as part of religious duty without
any reciprocal expectation. Thus, ‘dana’ should ideally involve purely
altruistic motivations. However, the question remains whether altruism in its true
sense is possible. The neo-classical school of economics emphasizes on the
‘rational actor model’ in which every human action is governed by expectation
of a return and a clear calculation of associated costs. The heterodox approaches
in economics take into account the emotional, cognitive, social, psychological
and institutional factors in explaining decision making by individuals. This
paper is a modest attempt to understand the intrinsic motivations of
individuals in offering pecuniary contributions to temples. The pertinent
question addressed is whether pecuniary giving to religious institutions such
as temples is guided by the interest to serve others in society or with an
expectation of a gain or could it be both at the same time. In other words, is
it possible to have a strict compartmentalisation of motives under egoism and
altruism? Or is it equally possible that individuals while expecting greater
blessings, honour or status also identify with the larger social purpose or
cause that the religious institution associates itself with. What would be the role of demographic factors
like age, education and income on the incidence and amounts of giving? Does
behaviour in the form of frequency of attendance, force of habits or emulation
have a role to play? Through the questions raised above, we attempt to
understand the socio-economic underpinnings of religious giving, a non-market
behaviour. Data would be collected through primary sources from 50 devotees
from various temple premises. A purposive sampling design would be followed to
ensure an adequate representation of respondents across gender and age
categories.
Mamta Bhardwaj is currently
pursuing her post-graduate degree in MA Applied Economics at Christ University,
Bangalore. She worked for Northern Trust as a fund
accountant.