Let me inform you of the following research seminar.

Date: June 27(Fri.)  , 2025 
Time:5:20PM -6:50PM
Venue: 11th Floor, Bldg.No.2 Meeting Room B
Speaker: Elizaveta Kugaevskaia  (Waseda University) 
Organizer: Takuya Hasebe
Language: English

Title: Religious Persuasion and Electoral Backlash: Evidence from Church Expansion
Abstract:
This paper investigates how political messaging delivered through religious institutions influences voting behavior. I leverage the case of post-communist Russia, where a sharp increase in church construction followed the end of state-imposed religious restrictions. Using a newly assembled panel dataset of church locations and founding years dating back to the 11th century, I exploit spatial and temporal variation in exposure to churches within a difference-in-differences framework. The results show that an increase in the number of churches in a city reduces the vote share of the incumbent party aligned with the church by approximately six percentage points, with half of the shift favoring the communist party. Voter turnout remains stable, suggesting that former ruling party supporters may respond to its ties with the church by voting for the opposition.