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Is God in the details? A reexamination of the role of religion in economic growth

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  • Steven N. Durlauf
  • Andros Kourtellos
  • Chih Ming Tan

Abstract

Barro and McCleary (2003) is a key research contribution in the new literature exploring the macroeconomic effects of religious beliefs. This paper represents an effort to evaluate the strength of their claims. We evaluate their results in terms of replicability and robustness. While we find that their analysis meets the standard of statistical replicability, we do not find that the results are robust to changes in their baseline statistical specification. Taken together, we conclude that their analysis cannot be taken to provide useable evidence on how religion might affect aggregate outcomes.
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Suggested Citation

  • Steven N. Durlauf & Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan, 2012. "Is God in the details? A reexamination of the role of religion in economic growth," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(7), pages 1059-1075, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:japmet:v:27:y:2012:i:7:p:1059-1075
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    1. McCleary, Rachel & Barro, Robert, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth across Countries," Scholarly Articles 3708464, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    2. Alesina, Alberto & Devleeschauwer, Arnaud & Easterly, William & Kurlat, Sergio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2003. "Fractionalization," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 155-194, June.
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    4. Winford H. Masanjala & Chris Papageorgiou, 2008. "Rough and lonely road to prosperity: a reexamination of the sources of growth in Africa using Bayesian model averaging," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 671-682.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C59 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Other
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

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