The Effect of Religious Expenditure upon the Permanent Income of Korean Households

This study was designed to statistically analyze the effect of religious expenditure upon the permanent income of korean households. The direction of causal effectiveness between religiosity and income is inconclusive in the academic discussions. Using the pooled microdataset of the household income and expenditure survey from 2000 to 2008, the estimation result of permanent income equation shows that the permanent income of Korean households is positively related with households’ religious expenditure. The Korean households with religious expenditure have higher permanent income than the households with no religious expenditure. A limitation of this study is that it was impossible to analyze by the type of religion because of the limitations of the data that do not provide information on the kind of religion followed by households.