A recent publication by the St. Louis Fed notes the relationship between the belief in hell and economic growth.
According to the secularization hypothesis, as a country’s inhabitants become richer and more educated, their faith in religion and religious institutions wanes, and they attend church less regularly. Economists Edward Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote find some support for this hypothesis. They wrote in 2002 that increased education results in a decrease in the extent of religious beliefs, perhaps because public school systems tend to reinforce secular education that, the economists argue, conflicts with traditional religious beliefs. By contrast, …economist Laurence Iannaccone wrote in 1998 that church attendance rises with education, which suggests that rich Western countries should have higher rates of church attendance. Ultimately, then, the issue is whether religious beliefs, as Weber and Smith argued, can be shown to have an effect on a country’s economic growth.
[...] What we also see from the graph is that the greater the belief in hell (religious beliefs), the less corrupt a country’s public and private institutions tend to be perceived; this perception, in turn, can affect economic growth.
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Curiously, my posts under “Chaff with Wheat” apply here too.
Not so much a belief in religion or hell, but practicing self-control, i.e. a population that with very few exceptions does not steal or commit violent acts allows people to devote effort to productive instead of protective ends.
Economic calculation is impossible by socialists, but isn’t much better if barbarians are going to kill or rob or steal from you at frequent but random intervals.
This is also “the broken window fallacy” once removed.
If a lot of people credibly threaten to break windows, or actually do so, either the windows will have to be modified to be shatterproof, or a large number of security guards will need to be hired (all properly at uncoerced free market prices and wage rates). Would that cause an economic boom with all the new activity?
One other strange thought – apparently the “Broken Windows fallacy” doesn’t apply to software from Microsoft. Those windows are never fixed. (Or put another way, why do early birds and windows boxes get all the worms?)
Robert Barro has done some work on this.
And, of course, we touched on the subject at Dr. Hoppe’s seminar this past June.
Good point, tz.
Of course, there is the question of which institutions have been most effective at deterring aggression?
Religion (especially in the modern form of Christianity) tends to be very good at that. It makes sense that it’s hard to convince someone that’s nonreligious that they shouldn’t do something because it’s immoral. Ultimately, you have to appeal to an Objectivist or rule utilitarian argument that “Well, somewhere down the line it’ll come back to haunt you.” Religion, however, offers a when and how!
Lucas,
Nonagression and the possession of actual “weapons of mass destruction” are the only reliable deterrents of aggression.
Had Bush not had very good intelligence that Iraq did NOT possess such weapons and the means of delivering them, we would not have invaded. Imagine how popular he would have been if millions of Americans were annihilated due to his provocations. “Well, New York may have been wasted, but he was not kidding about those weapons and Saddam’s insanity!”
If the posession and use of weapons of mass destruction were somehow a disqualifier for membership in the community of nations, the US would be forever an outlaw.
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