event
Centre for International Environmental Studies
Thursday
24
October
Food for the Soul: Measuring the Impact of the Reintroduction Fish Friday for (some) British Catholics

Food for the Soul: Measuring the Impact of the Reintroduction Fish Friday for (some) British Catholics

Shaun Larcom, Lecturer in Environmental Economics and Policy University of Cambridge (UK)
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Room P1-847, Maison de la paix, Geneva

*** EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED, APOLOGIES FOR ANY INCOVENIENCE ***

The ECON seminars are organised by the CIES at the Institute and aim to bring top scholars in Europe to present their recent work at the frontier of environmental, resource and development economics.

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On 16 September 2011 the Catholic bishops in England and Wales  reinstated the obligation to abstain from eating meat on Fridays -  normally observed by eating fish in its place.  In doing so, they  returned to a practice that dates back to the very early days of  Christianity.  The stated aims of the bishops was to increase religious  practice and identity. While the obligation was reinstated in England and Wales, it was not in the rest of the UK, namely in Scotland and  Northern Ireland.  We use this quasi-experimental setting, where some Catholics in the UK were subjected to the obligation but others were  not, to measure its impact on consumption and religious practice and satisfaction. We find evidence of compliance with the obligation and that it coincides with increased religious observance and satisfaction.