Religion Can Be Positive for Economic Progress, and Negative Too

INTERVIEW

MAY/JUNE 2021

RELIGION

VOL. 5, NO. 3, PGS. 1–8

A conversation with Rachel McCleary and Robert Barro

This interview was conducted by Javier Toro.

Rachel McCleary is Lecturer in the Economics Department at Harvard University, Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She is author of The Wealth of Religions: The Political Economy of Believing and Belonging.

Robert Barro is Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is author of The Wealth of Religions: The Political Economy of Believing and Belonging.

Are the type of religion practised and religiosity an unequivocal determinant of a country’s economic performance today?

Robert Barro: I think saying that there is an unequivocal relationship is too strong. I think the relation is more nuanced. We found that religious beliefs that sustain traits such as work effort, thrift and honesty promoted economic growth. We also found that just more attendance at formal religious services, often called church attendance, was actually negative for growth. Of course, beliefs and attendance tend to move together across countries and over time. If you look at a typical pattern in which they move together, you will not find conclusive evidence of their association with economic growth. So, in that sense, the overall connection between religiosity, including both beliefs and participation, and economic growth is not very strong. We also found some evidence, and others have found some evidence, that certain types of regulations associated with formal religion can be negative for economic progress. That seems to be true particularly in Muslim countries that sustained certain regulations that were negative for markets and the economy more broadly.

Rachel McCleary: A religion that involves a high investment of your resources will have a negative effect on your economic productivity. Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism, for example, which are growing very rapidly in Brazil, Guatemala, and other parts of Latin America, are very resource-intensive —you go to church on Sunday, your children are educated in the church, you participate in church-related social activities, such as Bible reading, and so on. Of course, they support each other. For example, they help people of their congregation with food and some churches have a used clothing network. All these are all very good, very positive, but they aren’t necessarily productive activities. They are what we call mutual aid. It is a transfer of goods as opposed to producing something. For a religion to contribute to economic activity and productivity it has to teach its members to work hard, to save, to invest in human capital.

ramonglz@ujaen.es

26/05/2021

Objetivamente, la relación o semejanza entre las diferentes religiones, a grandes rasgos y bajo un prisma generalista, es tan escasa que impide alcanzar cualquier conclusión. Un mismo hecho, que es intrínsecamente bueno y positivo en una determinada religión, para otra puede resultar negativo y objeto de persecución. El análisis de los entrevistados corresponde a una visión muy personal, muy probablemente fruto de su desvinculación a una religión en particular. No obstante, esto no es reflejo de objetividad, sino de una visión bastante parcial e incompleta. El epígrafe de este artículo ya lo evidencia. No debería por tanto tratarse tan a la ligera un asunto tan complejo.
Muchas gracias, y espero que no se moleste por lo que para mi, es una obviedad.