TY  - JOUR
AU  - Berman,Eli
TI  - Sect, Subsidy, and Sacrifice:  An Economist's View of Ultra-Orthodox    Jews
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6715
PY  - 1998
Y2  - August 1998
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6715
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6715.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Eli Berman
Department of Economics, 508
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA  92093
Tel: 858/534-2858
Fax: 858/534-7040
E-Mail: elib@ucsd.edu
AB  - The Israeli Ultra-Orthodox population doubles each seventeen years.  With 60 % of prime aged males attending Yeshiva rather than working, that community is rapidly outgrowing its resources. Why do fathers with families in poverty choose Yeshiva over work? Draft deferments subsidize Yeshiva attendance, yet attendance typically continues long after they are draft exempt.  We explain this puzzle with a club good model in which Yeshiva attendance signals commitment to the community.  Subsidizing membership in a club with sacrifice as an entry requirement induces increased sacrifice, compounding the distortion and dissipating the subsidy.  Policies treating members and potential entrants equally are Pareto improving.  The analysis may generalize to other by increasing the stringency of prohibitions and sacrifice.
ER  -