Religion serves as an important source of beliefs for many across the world yet we know little about how religion and religious leaders contribute to belief formation. In this study, I exploit a unique partnership with the Punjab Auqaf Department in Pakistan, responsible for running state religious properties, to experimentally vary sermon content in 300 mosques and evaluate the causal impact of religious sermons on mosque-goers' social beliefs and behavior. By randomizing imams to sermon scripts emphasizing the importance of community rights and women's rights, I explore the importance of religious messaging for prosociality towards neighbors, community engagement, and attitudes towards women's social and economic participation.

Low trust in secular state institutions can limit the effectiveness of informational interventions among religious populations. Recent work has suggested the potential for religious leaders to be utilized for information dissemination, but research directly comparing the efficacy of religious with secular leaders is lacking. Moreover, what, if any, are the unintended consequences of utilizing religious leaders as frontline agents tasked with achieving state goals? 

In this project, I explore the educational role of local leaders and compare the ability of local religious and secular leaders to encourage positive health behaviors in the context of a state-sponsored handwashing campaign in Punjab, Pakistan. In collaboration with the Pakistan Ministry of Health, I hope to randomize Pakistani couples to meetings with either their local health worker or religious leader (imam) and then evaluate changes in hand hygiene, handwashing behavior, and beliefs about handwashing. Through lab-in-field games, I also hope to explore the micro-foundations for separation of Church and State by evaluating whether reliance on religious leaders for information dissemination makes them the preferred choice for information in the future, even on secular topics. In doing so, this work hopes to shed light on the benefits and pitfalls of using religious leaders to achieve policy goals through state-sponsored information campaigns.

What drives religious content? In this project, I explore this question from both the demand and supply side in the context of mosques in Punjab, Pakistan. On the demand side, I provide congregants with "content information" (i.e. sermon content of nearby mosques) or "mosque information" (i.e. amenities and congregation characteristics of nearby mosques) and evaluate impacts on mosque choice. On the supply side, I provide religious leaders with "market information" (i.e. congregants' preferences and sermon content of nearby mosques) or "top-down information" (beliefs of senior religious leaders) and look at endogenous changes to sermon content. Results will have implications for policymakers seeking to understand the drivers of local hate speech and polarization and ways in which increased information can reduce the influence of controversial leaders.