In Switzerland, two key church institutions—the Conference of Swiss Bishops and the Federation of Protestant Churches—make public recommendations on how to vote for certain referenda. We leverage this situation to directly measure religious organizations’ power to reflect and shape human decision making. That is, using a direct measure of voters’ commitment to their religious institution, we analyze whether they are more likely to vote in line with this organization's voting recommendation. We find that these recommendations do indeed wield influence, implying that even in a secularized world, religion plays a crucial role in voting decisions. Our results hold for both aggregate and individual‐level voting decisions.

中文翻译：

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教堂投票建议，选民偏好和政治决策

在瑞士，两个主要的教会机构-瑞士主教大会和新教教会联合会-就如何投票给某些公投提出公开建议。我们利用这种情况直接衡量宗教组织反映和塑造人类决策的能力。也就是说，通过直接衡量选民对他们宗教机构的承诺，我们分析了他们是否更有可能按照该组织的投票建议进行投票。我们发现，这些建议确实具有影响力，这意味着即使在世俗化的世界中，宗教在投票决定中也起着至关重要的作用。我们的结果适用于总体和个人级别的投票决策。