U.S.-Based Private Voluntary Organizations: Religious and Secular PVOs Engaged in International Relief & Development

We have constructed a new and substantial data set from 1939 to 2004 on U.S.-based private voluntary organizations (PVOs) engaged in international relief and development. The universe comprises PVOs registered with the federal government (U.S. Agency for International Development since the early 1960s). PVOs are classified by type among secular and 14 types of religious categories. Classifications were made for the date of founding and in 2004 (or last date of existence). We can therefore examine shifts in classification over time%u2014among religion types and between religious and secular. The data set has information on revenue and expenditure for each year. We distinguish revenue by source: federal, international organization, and private. We distinguish within these sources by grants, contracts, in-kind and cash donations, and so on. We break down expenditure into categories, including a division between international and domestic programs. This data set allows us to track trends in the overall universe of PVOs and by type of PVO in terms of numbers registered, income, expenditure, and sub-categories of income and expenditure. Analysis can now be conducted at the individual agency and aggregate levels for PVOs engaged in international relief and development and registered with the U.S. federal government from 1939 to 2004.

Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel

Economic and political developments affect religiosity, and the extent of religious participation and beliefs influence economic performance and political institutions. We study these two directions of causation in a broad cross-country panel that includes survey information over the last 20 years on church attendance and an array of religious beliefs. Although religiosity declines overall with economic development, the nature of the response varies with the dimension of development. Church attendance and religious beliefs are positively related to education (thereby conflicting with theories in which religion reflects non-scientific thinking) and negatively related to urbanization. Attendance also declines with higher life expectancy and lower fertility. We investigate the effects of official state religions, government regulation of the religion market, Communism, religious pluralism, and the denominational composition of religious adherence. On the other side, we find that economic growth responds positively to the extent of some religious beliefs but negatively to church attendance. That is, growth depends on the extent of believing relative to belonging. These results hold up when we use as instrumental variables the measures of official state religion, government regulation, and religious pluralism.

Which Countries Have State Religions?

For 188 independent countries in 2000, 72 had no state religion in the years 2000, 1970, and 1900; 58 had a state religion at all three dates; and 58 had some kind of transition. Among the 58 transitional countries, 12 had two transitions, 4 of which (former Soviet Republics in Asia) involved two forms of state religion. The probability of having a state religion in 2000 or 1970 depends strongly on the status of state religion in 1900 but much more so for countries that experienced no major change in political regime during the 20th century. Communist governments tend not to have state religion - only one Communist country (Somalia in 1970) had a state religion in the usual sense. However, a past history of Communism does not have much influence on the probability of state religion. Greater concentration of religious adherence is positively related to state religion, and most of this relation seems to reflect causation from religious concentration to state religion, rather than the reverse. Theoretically, state religion is more probable when the population adheres to a monotheistic religion. We find this effect for Muslim adherence, but the relationship is not robust. State religion is less likely in sub-Saharan Africa, possibly because of the intense competition for converts in this region among the major world religions. The probability of state religion does not differ significantly between former colonies and non-colonies but is higher for British colonies than for Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Variables that have little effect on the probability of state religion include per capita GDP, country size, and the extent of democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law.

Ski-Lift Pricing, with an Application to the Labor Market

The market for ski runs or amusement rides often features lump-sum admission tickets with no explicit price per ride. Therefore, the equation of the demand for rides to the supply involves queues, which are systematically longer during peak periods, such as weekends. Moreover, the prices of admission tickets are much less responsive than the length of queues to variations in demand, even when these variations are predictable. We show that this method of pricing generates nearly efficient outcomes under plausible conditions. In particular, the existence of queues and the "stickiness" of prices do not necessarily mean that rides are allocated improperly or that firms choose inefficient levels of investment. We then draw an analogy between "ski-lift pricing" and the use of profit-sharing schemes in the labor market. Although firms face explicit marginal costs of labor that are sticky and less than workers' reservation wages, and although the pool of profits seems to create a common-property problem for workers, this method of pricing can approximate the competitive outcomes for employment and total labor compensation.

Saints Marching In, 1590-2009

The Catholic Church has been making saints for centuries, typically in a two-stage process featuring beatification and canonization. We analyze determinants of rates of beatification and canonization (for non-martyrs) over time and across six world regions. The research uses a recently assembled data set on numbers and characteristics of beatifieds and saints chosen since 1590. We classify these blessed persons regionally in accordance with residence at death. These data are combined with time-series estimates of regional populations of Catholics, broadly-defined Protestants, Orthodox, and Evangelicals (mostly a sub-set of Protestants). Regression estimates indicate that the canonization rate depends strongly on the number of candidates, gauged by a region’s stock of beatifieds who have not yet been canonized. The beatification rate depends positively on the region’s stock of persons previously canonized. The last two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI (the only non-Italians in our sample), are outliers, choosing blessed persons at a much higher rate than that of their predecessors. Since around 1900, the naming of blessed persons seems to reflect a response by the Catholic Church to competition from Protestantism or Evangelicalism. We find no evidence, at least since 1590, of competition between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

The Causal Relationship between Patent Growth and Growth of GDP with Quarterly Data in the G7 Countries: Cointegration, ARDL and Error Correction Models

This empirical study investigates the dynamic link between patent growth and GDP growth in G7 economies. ARDL model showed that there exist positive relationship in long run between quarterly growth of patents and quarterly GDP growth. The error correction term suggests that 20,6 percent of the adjustment back to long run equilibrium of industrial production in G7 countries is corrected by 20,6% a year, following a shock like the one in 1974 , which in our study is controlled by a dummy variable D74. In the short run however at one or two lags there exist negative relationship between quarterly patents growth and quarterly growth of GDP. Johansen’s procedure for cointegration showed that long run multipliers are positive between the patent growth and GDP growth in G7 economies. Granger causality test showed that patent growth Granger cause GDP growth in G7 countries. Unrestricted VAR showed that there exists positive relationship between patent growth and GDP growth at two or three lags

The Quantity Theory of Money is Valid. The New Keynesians are Wrong!

We test the quantity theory of money (QTM) using a novel approach and a large new sample. We do not follow the usual approach of first differentiating the logarithm of the Cambridge equation to obtain an equation relating the growth rate of real GDP, the growth rate of money and inflation. These variables must then again be ‘integrated’ by averaging in order to obtain stable relationships. Instead we suggest a much simpler procedure for testing directly the stability of the coefficient of the Cambridge equation. For 125 countries and post-war data we find the coefficient to be surprisingly stable. We do not select for high inflation episodes as was done in most empirical studies; inflation rates do not even appear in our data set. Much work supporting the QTM has been done by economic historians and at the University of Chicago by Milton Friedman and his associates. The QTM was a foundation stone of the monetarist revolution. Subsequently belief in it waned. The currently dominant New Keynesian School, implicitly or explicitly denies the validity of the QTM. We survey this history and argue that the QTM is valid and New Keynesians are wrong

Understanding the Emergence of Public Debt

We use a controlled laboratory experiment with and without overlapping generations to study the emergence of public debt. Public debt is chosen by popular vote, pays for public goods, and is repaid with general taxes. With a single generation, public debt is accumulated prudently, never leading to over-indebtedness. With multiple generations, public debt is accumulated rapidly as soon as the burden of debt and the risk of over-indebtedness can be shifted to future generations. Debt ceiling mechanisms do not mitigate the debt problem. With overlapping generations, political debt cycles emerge, oscillating with the age of the majority of voters