Formation of sects in a religious market

Abstract

This paper is an extension of the recent work by the authors where a simplifying assumption of no costs of entry to the religious market was set. In the present paper, the religious market is regulated in the sense that a sect in order to establish itself in a market has to bear costs of entry. In the case of one official denomination the strict sect attracts less flock, and the monopoly church will acquire more church-goers and even marginally religious people will hesitate between joining the church and staying nonreligious. In case of prohibitively high costs the sect will shrink to zero and the church will take control over almost all population with the remaining small group of nonbelievers. A comparative statics problem in the case of the two official churches was also considered. In stage one of the game these churches choose their position in the strictness interval with the subsequent emergence of sects. The more costly is entry the less populated will be the strict sect and even the moderate sect will turn more liberal with the loss of some of its members.