Resumen de Is religious freedom beneficial to international trade?
This paper attempts to investigate the influence of religious freedom on international trade using a modified gravity model. To avoid biased results arising from zero trade flows and heteroskedasticity problems, the study used the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) estimation, as suggested by Santos Silva and Tenreyro (2006), to estimate the effects of religious freedom on trade in goods and services covering the years 2003, 2005, and 2007. I found that religious regulation and favoritism discouraged both goods and services trade. Second, governmental and social regulation of religion has a greater negative impact on services trade than on goods trade.
Third, social regulation of religion exerts negative influences on services trade more than governmental religious regulation and favoritism do, and this effect on services trade is greater than on goods trade. Fourth, religious regulation and favoritism have a greater service-import restricting effect in countries with weak trade regimes.
Fifth, religious regulation and favoritism have a greater service-import restricting effect in countries with high tariff and non-tariff barriers. In short, religious freedom contributes to enhancing trade by circumventing cultural and institutional differences among trading partners.
