Is God in the Details? A Reexamination of the Role of Religion in Economic Growth

Durlauf, Steven N.; Kourtellos, Andros; Tan, Chih Ming

Is God in the Details? A Reexamination of the Role of Religion in Economic Growth

Journal of Applied Econometrics, 27(7), p. 1059-1075, 2012

32 Pages Posted: 3 Oct 2006 Last revised: 20 Aug 2013

See all articles by Steven N. Durlauf

Steven N. Durlauf

University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Andros Kourtellos

University of Cyprus - Department of Economics; University of Bologna - Rimini Center for Economic Analysis (RCEA)

Chih Ming Tan

University of North Dakota - College of Business & Public Administration - Department of Economics

Date Written: January 31, 2011

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. Overall, their analysis generally meets the standard of statistical replicability, though not perfectly. On the other hand, we do not find that their results are robust to changes in their baseline statistical specification. When model averaging methods are employed to integrate information across alternative statistical specifications, little evidence survives that religious variables help to predict cross-country income differences.

Keywords: Economic Growth, Religion, Model Uncertainty

JEL Classification: C59, O40, Z12

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Durlauf, Steven N. and Kourtellos, Andros and Tan, Chih Ming, Is God in the Details? A Reexamination of the Role of Religion in Economic Growth (January 31, 2011). Journal of Applied Econometrics, 27(7), p. 1059-1075, 2012. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=933989