We use the elements of a macroeconomic production function – physical capital, human capital, labor, and technology – together with standard growth models to frame the role of religion in economic growth. Unifying a growing literature, we argue that religion can enhance or impinge upon...

We find a U-shaped relation between happiness and religiosity in cross-country panel dataafter controlling for income levels. At a given level of income, the same level of happinesscan be reached with high and low levels of religiosity, but not with intermediate levels. A risein income causes an...

We investigate the relationship between religion and trust. Using a questionnaire, we measure: i) general religiosity, and; ii) the extent of religious beliefs, experience, and ritual. These are then analyzed with behaviour in a trust game (Berg et al., Games and Economic Behaviour, 1995), which...

We revisit Max Weber's hypothesis on the role of Protestantism for economic development. We show that nationalism is crucial to both, the interpretation of Weber's Protestant Ethic and empirical tests thereof. For late 19th century Prussia we reject Weber's suggestion that Protestantism mattered...

Considerable evidence has documented that the elderly are more religious and that religiousness is associated with better health and lower mortality. Yet, little is known about the reverse role of life expectancy or proximity to death, as opposed to age, for religiousness. This paper provides...

We study whether compulsory religious education in schools affects students' religiosity as adults. We exploit the staggered termination of compulsory religious education across German states in models with state and cohort fixed effects. Using three different datasets, we find that abolishing...

This paper investigates the apparent paradox of the mid 2000's sharp reduction in the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon that happened alongside fast growing commodity markets. Particular attention is given to the role played by PPCDAM, an environmental policy introduced by the federal...

As the most inhospitable continent on Earth, Antarctica has more than 90% of its territory covered with ice and contains around 70% of all potable water in the world. Its proximity to South America is especially relevant to Brazil, which includes it in the country's strategic surrounding area....

This paper theoretically and empirically analyzes the interaction of emigration of highly skilled labor, an economy`s income gap to potential host economies of expatriates, and optimal public infrastructure investment. In a model with endogenous education and R&D investment decisions we show...

R&D-based growth theory suggests that a larger population size raises either the long-run rate of economic growth (strong scale effect) or the level of per capita income (weak scale effect), with far-reaching policy implications. However, for modern times there is little empirical support for...