How to measure the relationship between religion and economic growth or economic welfare. In micro or macro level?
Yes it is possible, and some mathematical equations can be derived. But then there are so many forms of religion that comparison becomes difficult.
The micro level is probably easier if you have an individual (people) level data set. Then you could look at issues such as access to jobs (employment) and pay as a function of measures of human capital and then add a religious denomination as an additional variable.
Thank you very much Hamit Can and Emmanuel vijayanand Murray for helping.
I appreciate it
Wilson Rajagukguk, Indonesia
Measuring relationship between Economic growth and religion not easy. I suggest you maesure relationship between economic growth through prism - how religion affect on mentality of nation in histirical period.
It depends on at what level and at what magnitude you want to test such relationship. At macro level, you may choose per capita GDP or income as dependent variable. Your independent variable might country's major religion (make those dummy variable), number of people who visit religious institution in daily/weekly/monthly, presence of religious principles in constitution etc. In micro level, you may need to choose a number of individuals like 100 people of various religious belief and practice. Wealth/income again will be dependent variable. Independent variable would be religion, practice frequency etc. Not so difficult if you can collect data.
I think is no possible, because although there are 2 variables:
1) Number of people who have some religion
2) Gross Domestic Product
They have different units of measurement
You only need slope value and it's sign . And in regression analytics you don't need variables to be of same measurements.
Directly, you can not do it. But, when religion order you to work, surely it has relation to economy. In Al-Qur'an, God order all religious communities to pray then go to the west and east to look for livelihood.
It means, every one is ordered to pray and work
" when religion order you to work", many people don´t work, regardless of religion that professes; live from the work of others
First, please forgive me for weakness of my English and second, I would like to apologize in case the problems described below are good known to you. But just in case I mention them, because in regard to the connection "religion – economic growth" these problems are, in my opinion, very grave.
The first is the hypothesis that not religion affects growth, but religion and growth are influenced by the third factor (factors). For example (it can be considered as an illustration only): if the growth of the marginal propensity to save, caused by economic conditions, on the one hand, lead to the expansion of religion, which gives moral support and ethical legitimacy of such behavior, and on the other – broadens the basis for investment and promotes growth.
The second is the problem of ensuring "other equal conditions". It is clear that religion is not the only factor, having an impact on the economic growth, therefore, it is very difficult to distinguish the religion contribution among dozens more or less significant factors.
Finally, the third problem, in my opinion, is due to the fact that the characteristics of "prevalence" and "influence" of religion may not have a common variation in time series or in a panel between countries.
The vision of this problem, in my opinion, depends on the "interaction model" which was chosen, or in another words on the "connecting gear" between religion and growth. And if we accept that religion affects growth not through the redistribution of income (for example, from meeting current needs to capital investment in the churches construction), but due to the changes in the guidelines of behavior (values, stereotypes of thinking, the accumulation of trust within religious communities, etc.), then the prevalence and influence of religion does not necessarily have a common variation, both in the dynamic series and in the panel study.
In my opinion, most indicators of the religion prevalence (the share of people who are registered as parishioners of a particular church, or even the part of household incomes that are redistributed in favor of religious organizations) cannot, in fact, be interpreted as an assessment of the religion's potential for influencing economic processes, and in particular growth. The doubt that religiosity in different countries has the same effect on economic behavior, seems as quite reasonable. Would be correctly to accept that affiliation with the Catholic Church equally affects economic behavior in Poland and America? In Brazil and in Italy? In Germany and in Ukraine?
In addition, there is another problem - the distribution of the total number of "religious" between groups of people with greater or lesser economic impact. Suppose that in the country "A" the proportion of religious is significantly lower than in country "B". But in "A", the most affluent entrepreneurs and managers, having a decisive influence on the parameters of the national economy are affiliated with church. So where religion is more influential: in "A", or in "B"?
The above applies cases when the panel research was used.
The outlined below refers to the time series. I dare to formulate the general logic in the first approximation as "if in the period “t”, when there is a greater prevalence of religiosity, there is also a relatively higher rate of growth than in the period “t-1”, when the religiosity was relatively less, then we have an empirical evidence of a positive relationship between religiosity and growth"
But what length of time should be “t”, to give the religion’s influence opportunity to be manifested? Can we assume that throughout all that period "religiosity", as a specific set of institutions, values, stereotypes and routines did not undergo qualitative changes? And can we assume that throughout all that period the "growth" remain the same? Would it be correctly to proceed that religiosity equally affects growth, based on the export of natural resources and the replacement of imports by national industrial production? Or based on the export of industrial products and high technology?
I think if you will resolve these problems, the results you will get may be valuable not only to explaining the connection "religion-growth" but also for researches, devoted to many other "behavioral" factors of economic growth.
There is problem to meassure religion and economic growth , because religion is a qualitative variable and economic growth quantitative.
Hello Wilson:
Thank; I found this article about the topic :
Religion and Economic Growth
Robert J. Barro, Rachel McCleary
NBER Working Paper No. 9682 Issued in May 2003
To meassure religion The authors " estimated panel systems in which the dependent variables are country averages of answers to survey questions about attendance at religious services and religious belief"
Very good thinking. I thought about it but in secondary data in all country are not available.
I have a suggestion, through an indicator with two variables, which has a limitation can not be measured directly, because the variables have different measure.
1) Number of people practicing any religion
2) Gross Domestic Product
In the case of Mexico, in 2010 there were 92 924 489 practicing the Catholic religion and the gross domestic product was 15499585.1 national currency, for 2017 the gross domestic product was 18760864.5, with an average growth rate of 2.8%,
It is necessary to have a standard indicator
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/08/religious-decline-was-the-key-to-economic-development-in-the-20th-century
Empirically as is shown, it is possible to measure the relationship between Religion and Economic Growth. However, you must use indicative factors as there is no direct data for religion in particular.
Hello Dipen
It´s very interesting article " This is the link between religion and economic development". I want to point out about Max Weber in his study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber argues that the religion had an important role in the Calvinists in create capitalistic spirit.
On the other hand, in the example in the article "100 years of economic Data", are measuring with two variables: secularisation and Gross Domestic Product but in the Note mentioned that " How secularisation (red line) and economic development (blue line) have changed during the 20th century in Great Britain, Nigeria, Chile and Philippines." Economic development and economic growth are different".
Hi Wilson
The relationship beetween Religion and Economic Growth could be spurious, since there are multiple factors involved. That means, from a quantitative approach you have to control the possible biases involved in your model. However, from a qualitative approach, the suggestion of Martha Pantoja of Weber colud be a first begining.
There are no statistics on the impact of religion on the economy and on certain variables in particular, for example: productivity. Personally, if people want to create wealth and progress.
Some work is being done by researches and students of International Islamic University Malaysia on developing an index of development with religious variables as weighted measures. Its work in progress but its possible to do it.
Max Weber has already been mentioned, but related to his claims much research has been done in non-Christian countries about religions and their potential to facilitate capitalist development. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s much of such research has been conducted. Personally I feel that religion can have an impact on economic development, but only in combination with other factors. Already in Weber's protestant ethics this has bee highlighted. Also empirically there are differences between countries that have protestant majorities of population, but rather distinct economic development paths.
One indicator could be:
Gross Domestic product/People
who practice a religion*100
@Martha Pantoja, I think it's a very complex issue. A country whose population pyramid is inverted can not be valued in the same way as one whose population tends to encourage births. There are many variables to consider and unequal weight must be given to interrelated variables (Catholic believers tend to encourage births = linked variables). You have to do hard work to get solid conclusions. Is it worthwhile to stop at those assessments? Is not there much said and known in advance about the concentration of wealth caused by the capitalist system? I think the result of such hard work will not have the social impact that justifies it. It can be a job for students. (Deberíamos comunicarnos en castellano....).
It could be done ! why not ?! Usually, management and administration people give studied weight for each factor and analyze such desired problems !
Hello Colleagues:
Religion and its impact on economic growth, some theorists such as Max Weber insist that the high growth of the Dutch economy in the first half of the seventeenth century was due to the Calvinist religion.
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