IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/9682.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Religion and Economic Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Robert J. Barro
  • Rachel McCleary

Abstract

Empirical research on the determinants of economic growth has typically neglected the influence of religion. To fill this gap, we use international survey data on religiosity for a broad panel of countries to investigate the effects of church attendance and religious beliefs on economic growth. To isolate the direction of causation from religiosity to economic performance, we use instrumental variables suggested by our analysis of systems in which church attendance and beliefs are the dependent variables. The instruments are dummy variables for the presence of state religion and for regulation of the religion market, an indicator of religious pluralism, and the composition of religions. We find that economic growth responds positively to the extent of religious beliefs, notably those in hell and heaven, but negatively to church attendance. That is, growth depends on the extent of believing relative to belonging. These results accord with a perspective in which religious beliefs influence individual traits that enhance economic performance. The beliefs are, in turn, the principal output of the religion sector, and church attendance measures the inputs to this sector. Hence, for given beliefs, more church attendance signifies more resources used up by the religion sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert J. Barro & Rachel McCleary, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 9682, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9682
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9682.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert J. Barro & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2003. "Economic Growth, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262025531, December.
    2. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    3. Barro, Robert J & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2001. "International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and Implications," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 541-563, July.
    4. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce I. Sacerdote, 2008. "Education and Religion," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(2), pages 188-215.
    5. Azzi, Corry & Ehrenberg, Ronald G, 1975. "Household Allocation of Time and Church Attendance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(1), pages 27-56, February.
    6. Mark Chaves & David E. Cann, 1992. "Regulation, Pluralism, and Religious Market Structure," Rationality and Society, , vol. 4(3), pages 272-290, July.
    7. Barro, Robert J, 2000. "Inequality and Growth in a Panel of Countries," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 5-32, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. McCleary, Rachel & Barro, Robert, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth across Countries," Scholarly Articles 3708464, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    2. Robert J. Barro & Rachel M. McCleary, 2002. "Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel," NBER Working Papers 8931, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Robert Barro & Rachel M. McCleary, 2003. "International Determinants of Religiosity," NBER Working Papers 10147, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Chia-Lin Chang & Thanchanok Khamkaew & Michael McAleer, 2012. "IV Estimation of a Panel Threshold Model of Tourism Specialization and Economic Development," Tourism Economics, , vol. 18(1), pages 5-41, February.
    5. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Violeta Vulovic & Yongzheng Liu, 2011. "Direct versus Indirect Taxation: Trends, Theory, and Economic Significance," Chapters, in: Emilio Albi & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), The Elgar Guide to Tax Systems, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Muinelo-Gallo, Leonel & Roca-Sagalés, Oriol, 2013. "Joint determinants of fiscal policy, income inequality and economic growth," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 814-824.
    7. Dustin Chambers & Susan Hamer, 2012. "Culture And Growth: Some Empirical Evidence," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(4), pages 549-564, October.
    8. Hilal Ozen & Ismail Kaya, 2013. "Reconsidering Migration, Globalization and Social Conditions in the World System," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 27(2), pages 31-64.
    9. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Lakner, Christoph & Lugo, Maria Ana & Ozler, Berk, 2014. "Inequality of opportunity and economic growth : a cross-country analysis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6915, The World Bank.
    10. Pieper, Ute, 2002. "Patterns of inter-sectoral diffusion of technological growth: income, concentration, and public capital stocks," Research Memorandum 012, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    11. Soldatos, Gerasimos T., 2014. "On the Religion-Public Policy Correlation," MPRA Paper 60859, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Yongzheng Liu & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2015. "Growth–Inequality Tradeoff in the Design of Tax Structure: Evidence from a Large Panel of Countries," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 323-345, May.
    13. Rachel M. Mccleary & Robert J. Barro, 2009. "Religia i gospodarka," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 1-2, pages 121-151.
    14. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2004. "Inequality, Tolerance, and Growth," Working Papers 04-8, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    15. Ioanna Boulouta & Christos Pitelis, 2014. "Who Needs CSR? The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on National Competitiveness," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 119(3), pages 349-364, February.
    16. Rehman Scheherazade S. & Askari Hossein, 2010. "An Economic IslamicityIndex (EI2)," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-39, October.
    17. Robert J. Barro & Jason Hwang, 2007. "Religious Conversion in 40 Countries," NBER Working Papers 13689, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Dustin Chambers & Jang-Ting Guo, 2009. "Natural Resources and Economic Growth: Some Theory and Evidence," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 10(2), pages 367-389, November.
    19. Robert J. Barro, 2003. "Determinants of Economic Growth in a Panel of Countries," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 4(2), pages 231-274, November.
    20. Grossmann, Volker, 2008. "Risky human capital investment, income distribution, and macroeconomic dynamics," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 19-42, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9682. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.