Beyond the Classroom: The Implications of School Vouchers for Church Finances

Review of Economics and Statistics ◽

10.1162/rest_a_00782 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 101 (4) ◽

pp. 588-601

Author(s):

Daniel M. Hungerman ◽

Kevin Rinz ◽

Jay Frymark

Keyword(s):

Private Education ◽

Financial Stability ◽

Religious Organizations ◽

School Vouchers ◽

Data Set ◽

Religiously Affiliated ◽

Financial Outcomes ◽

Social Fabric ◽

Dominant Source ◽

Church Finances

Governments have used vouchers to spend billions of dollars on private education; much of this has gone to religiously affiliated schools. We explore the possibility that vouchers could alter the financial outcomes of religious organizations that are operating schools and thus have an impact on the spiritual, moral, and social fabric of communities. Using a data set of Catholic parish finances from Milwaukee, we show that vouchers are a dominant source of funding for many churches. Vouchers appear to offer financial stability for congregations as voucher expansion prevents church closures and mergers. However, voucher expansion causes significant declines in church donations and church revenue from noneducational sources.

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El credito y la banca en Mexico. Siglos XVI al XIX: Origins of Church Wealth in Mexico. Ecclesiastical Revenues and Church Finances, 1523-1600 . John Frederick Schwaller. ; Credit and Socioeconomic Change in Colonial Mexico: Loans and Mortgages in Guadalajara, 1720-1820 . Linda Greenow. ; Mexico en la epoca de los agiotistas, 1821-1857 . Barbara A. Tenebaum. ; Banca y poder en Mexico, 1800-1925 . Leonor Ludlow, Carlos Marichal.

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos ◽

10.1525/msem.1988.4.1.03a00090 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 163-177

Author(s):

Gisela von Wobeser

Keyword(s):

Colonial Mexico ◽

Socioeconomic Change ◽

Church Finances

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School Vouchers in North Carolina 2014 - 2020

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.3652529 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jane Wettach

Keyword(s):

North Carolina ◽

School Vouchers

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Religious Markets, Capital Markets, and Church Finances in Industrializing America

10.1093/oso/9780198798071.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Eric Baldwin

Keyword(s):

Capital Markets ◽

Detailed Examination ◽

Social Stability ◽

Religious Institutions ◽

Moral Norms ◽

The Public ◽

Nineteenth Century America ◽

Protestant Churches ◽

Church Finances ◽

The City

A number of scholars in recent years have turned to market models to describe religion in nineteenth-century America, arguing that competition among churches largely accounts for the nation’s relative religious vitality. However, a detailed examination of one religious ‘marketplace’—the city of Lowell, Massachusetts—demonstrates the limits of such interpretations. First, such scholars fail to capture the ways that Protestant churches functioned as an interdenominational de facto establishment, co-operating in the shared project of promoting the public good and defending moral norms. Also, to the extent that churches did compete, they competed for money, as much as for adherents. In doing so, they appropriated new methods accompanying the expansion of capitalism, competing for funds in nascent capital markets. Thus, churches appealed to individuals not primarily as consumers of religious goods, but as potential investors in religious institutions, and presented churches as both safe and profitable investments and bulwarks of social stability.

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