Religion and economic welfare: An empirical analysis of state per capita income

Religious adherence and county economic growth in the US

“…This result supports the hypothesis that religious adherence or participation requires additional resources in terms of time and good (Barro and McCleary, 2003) or the hypothesis of opportunity cost of time, indicating that higher opportunity cost of time leads to lower adherence (Azzi and Ehrenberg, 1975;Lipford and Tollison, 2003). In general results differ somewhat from previous results obtained using international data (Barro and McCleary, 2003;Sala-i-Martin et al, 2004) and US data (Heath et al, 1995;Gruber, 2005). These differences may be due to two main reasons: data (international vs. regional; state vs. counties; individual survey data vs. cross-section data) and modeling and estimation issues (income growth vs. income levels; endogeneity).…”

“…Noland (2005) finds Protestants having negative effect on short-run growth but positive effect on long-run growth. Heath et al (1995), using US state data and modeling income levels rather than growth, find Catholic and fundamental Protestant variables to be negative and liberal Protestants to be positive. The difference between their results and ours may be due to several reasons: state level data vs. county level data; income levels vs. income growth; account for endogeneity; and mainline Protestants have higher incomes that grow at slower rates.…”

“…Lipford et al (1993) study the impact of church membership (using US state level data) on abortion, divorce, murder, illegitimate births and crime and find that church has a negative effect on most of these variables. Heath et al (1995) study the effects of religion on the level of income using US state level data. More importantly, they analyze the effects of various denominations categorized as Jewish, Catholic, liberal and fundamentalist Protestant and find that Jewish membership is positively associated with state per capita income, liberal Protestantism is not associated with state per capita income, and Catholicism and fundamentalist Protestantism are inversely associated with state per capita income.…”

Cultural Effects on Inbound Tourism into the USA: A Gravity Approach

“…Although, some literature about religion and economic wellbeing (e.g. Heath et al 1995) exists, papers dealing with the impact of religious believe on travel decisions are currently lacking. So, Vukonic (1996) pictures in his book the interaction between "Tourism and Religion".…”

Religious beliefs and entrepreneurship among Dutch protestants

“…Despite inconclusive results, many studies have shown that a link exists between religion and economic development. Both positive and negative effects of religion on indicators of economic welfare and growth are reported (Chiswick, 1983(Chiswick, , 1993Grier, 1985;Tomes, 1985;Heath, Waters and Watson, 1995;Steen, 1996;Barro and McCleary, 2003;Lipford and Tollison, 2003;Mangeloja, 2005;Bettendorf and Dijkgraaf, 2010). Barro and McCleary (2003) conjecture that the intensity of religious beliefs-rather than mere religious group membership-drives growth because such strong beliefs promote enduring aspects of individual behavior that increase productivity.…”