Competition and the Strategic Choices of Churches

摘要

We examine how the decisions of churches are impacted by the decisions of rival churches. Using a novel dataset, we estimate a model of strategic interaction, which accounts for the location and denomination of churches. We focus on a church's decision of whether to provide a weekday child care program. Empirical evidence indicates that churches compete more strongly with same-denomination churches than with different-denomination churches. These effects diminish with distance.