religion & economics

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu May 23 14:28:55 PDT 2002


[The abstract says nothing about faith in laissez-faire.]

"Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel"

BY: ROBERT J. BARRO

Harvard University

Department of Economics

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

RACHEL M. MCCLEARY

Harvard University

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs

Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:

http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=312644

Paper ID: NBER Working Paper No. W8931

Date: May 2002

Contact: ROBERT J. BARRO

Email: Mailto:rbarro at harvard.edu

Postal: Harvard University

Department of Economics

Littauer Center

Cambridge, MA 02138 UNITED STATES

Phone: 617-495-3203

Co-Auth: RACHEL M. MCCLEARY

Email: not available

Postal: Harvard University

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs

Cambridge, MA 02138 UNITED STATES

ABSTRACT:

Economic and political developments affect religiosity, and the

extent of religious participation and beliefs influence economic

performance and political institutions. We study these two

directions of causation in a broad cross-country panel that

includes survey information over the last 20 years on church

attendance and an array of religious beliefs. Although

religiosity declines overall with economic development, the

nature of the response varies with the dimension of development.

Church attendance and religious beliefs are positively related

to education (thereby conflicting with theories in which

religion reflects non-scientific thinking) and negatively

related to urbanization. Attendance also declines with higher

life expectancy and lower fertility. We investigate the effects

of official state religions, government regulation of the

religion market, Communism, religious pluralism, and the

denominational composition of religious adherence. On the other

side, we find that economic growth responds positively to the

extent of some religious beliefs but negatively to church

attendance. That is, growth depends on the extent of believing

relative to belonging. These results hold up when we use as

instrumental variables the measures of official state religion,

government regulation, and religious pluralism.



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