The economics of religion: A symposium

Journal of Economic Literature, 1998

Economist Netherlands, 2005

This paper provides an overview of the relationship between economics and religion. It first considers the effects of economic incentives in the religious marketplace on consumers' demand for "religion." It then shows how this demand affects religious institutions and generates a supply of religious goods and services. Other topics include the structure of this religious marketplace and the related "marketplace for ideas" in a religiously pluralistic society. Empirical evidence is summarized for the effects on selected economic behaviors of religious affiliation and intensity of belief or practice.

This paper will investigate the effects of religion in strengthening a society, especially the economy, or weakening it. Religion often promotes stability and tractability in a nation’s citizens. However, it can also have negative effects, causing distress to people and making the economy suffer. A religion with a pessimistic world view, a tenuous relationship with God and a perception that God can inflict punishment can actually break down social order while one with an optimistic view can stabilize it. We will also look at the impact of religion on economy in various cities, and nations, examining religion as a billion dollar industry. This paper will also investigate the effect of religion on building up the economy of a nation, especially the formation of new jobs, development of foreign direct investment, attraction of religious tourists and peripheral effects.

Journal of Economics, Theology and Religion, 2024

In 2021, I was looking for resources to teach the Economics of Religion, a new elective undergraduate course that I was developing for my department. I was unable to find a textbook at the undergraduate level, so I ended up drawing mostly from journal articles to design my course (Jahangir 2022). However, I recently came across the textbook by McBride and I found it to be an excellent resource. ... it is an excellent resource that goes beyond the standard neoclassical economics paradigm to address topics of cultural transmission and internalized moral norms, the complex impact of competition and regulation—and in so doing, leaves the readers with a richer understanding of the complex real world.

The separation of Church and state is a myth. Politicians solicit the support of religious groups for election is only one example. Additionally, religion and economics are intertwined because in reality America is a country that has interdependent relationships between economics, politics, sociology, social relationships, education and religion. This paper makes an argument addressing the relationship between religion and economics in America. Also this paper identifies the inconsistency and ambiguities in Christianity. Christianity is inconsistent in America; not so much in the doctrines but in the way it is practiced and interpreted to congregations by ministers.

Studia Gilsoniana , 2021

The response to the special 2019 issue of Studia Gilsoniana on economics was so positive that it led to the creation of the Aquinas School of Leadership School of Economics (ASLSE). This 2021 publication is, therefore, a second special issue of Studia Gilsoniana on the same theme and the second installment of ASLSE’s economic journals. We are delighted to present here further fruits of thought from the maturing Studia Gilsoniana and ASLSE partnership. Economics is held to be a value-free, scientific enterprise, and as such there can be no relationship between economics and religion. Ayn Rand, a well-known novelist-turned-philosopher, took this position in an unapologetic way in her writings, specifically in her novel Atlas Shrugged. The contrary position to what we might call the Randian “strict separation” thesis holds that economics and religion are related, in some way and to some degree, and therefore should be considered in tandem. The papers in this special edition of Studia Gilsoniana set out to show the extent and quality of the relationship between economics and religion from a variety of viewpoints and historical periods.

Vocabulary for the Study of Religion Vol. 1-3, edited by Robert A. Segal & Kocku von Stuckrad, pp. 469-75.

The economics of religion, as a very recent perspective, is based on academic traditions that initially described interrelations between religion and the economy, and increasingly analyze it in its cultural embeddedness. The neoclassical market model is still mainstream, but it has become more culture-sensitive through its transformations in behavioral economics and new institutional economics. For instance, choices are seen as being bounded (intransparency, transaction costs, non-rational players), and institutions are considered not as a given frame but as negotiable variables. Thus there is something outdated about studies which correlate religion as a separate factor with affluence, gender, number of children, etc., and predictions concerning the (de-)secularization of a region. By contrast, those studies are successful which examine the production of knowledge and goods in the context of religious cultural systems; their mediation and distribution through marketing and property rights; their consumption, which involves the destruction of certain values and the creation of others, such as identity, or specific human capital. In addition to the use of economic theory for an understanding of religion within cultural studies, this perspective also permits examination of the symbolic elevation and normativity of economic behavior and institutions.

Religion and Economics, 2020

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Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2006

R eligion has a two-way interaction with political economy. With religion viewed as a dependent variable, a central question is how economic development and political institutions affect religious participation and beliefs. With religion viewed as an independent variable, a key issue is how religiosity affects individual characteristics, such as work ethic, honesty and thrift, and thereby influences economic performance. In this paper, we sketch previous studies of this two-way interaction but focus on our ongoing quantitative research with international data.

NETSOL: New Trends in Social and Liberal Sciences, 2021

A preface, eight chapters, notes, a bibliography, and an index are what constitute Barro and McCleary's in-depth analysis of the "wealth" of religions. The book's title is very attractive, and at the same time quite provocative, as politics, economics and religions are widely debated topics in most societies these days, but people remain reserved to tackle certain aspects, in particular the link between money, markets and religious beliefs and belonging. Bringing together the views of an economist, Barro, and a moral philosopher, McCleary, leads to an interesting approach to religion as different from a social construct, the main idea upon which reflecting and debating religion has been based upon for years, if not centuries. No, Barro and McCleary take a different stance and use "Max Weber's (1864-1920) argument that religious beliefs motivate people to be productive, through inculcated values, such as diligence, integrity, and thrift" (vii) as their point of departure. In their preface, Barro and McCleary further explain the objective of the book, namely to analyse the role of religious beliefs in the development of individual characteristics. The authors combined their thoughts and some of their previously published articles in a series of chapters. The book evolves from a basic conceptual framework inspired by Adam Smith's and Max Weber's work, in which the interrelations between religion and economics are described. To that they added more recent discussions by both economists and sociologists in view of extending their basic framework and linking it to work undertaken in a seminar series, held at Harvard University, since 2001, on the political economy of religion.