Economic Effects of Religion

Article

The article discusses a pair of Harvard researchers recently examined 40 years of data from dozens of countries, trying to sort out the economic impact of religious beliefs or practice. They found that religion has a measurable effect on developing economies and the most powerful influence relates to how strongly people believe in hell. The two collected data from 59 countries where a majority of the population followed one of the four major religions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism. They ran this data which was covered from 1981 to 2000, measuring things like levels of belief in God, afterlife beliefs and worship attendance. Their results show a strong correlation between economic growth and certain shifts in beliefs, though only in developing countries. All developing countries are persuaded easily and are vulnerable to help if religious organizations go in and show that they will be there people are willing to commit to them and become apart of their communion.