Want a 10% raise? Go to church.
December 24, 2005
Strange things happen when an economist views the world at Christmas.
Economics focus | Wealth from worship | Economist.com
AT CHRISTMAS, many people do things they would never dream of the rest of the year, from giving presents to getting drunk. Some even go to church. …According to Mr Gruber’s calculations, a 10% increase in the density of co-religionists leads to an 8.5% rise in churchgoing. Once he has controlled for other inter-city differences, Mr Gruber finds that a 10% increase in the density of co-religionists leads to a 0.9% rise in income. In other words, because there are lots of non-Polish Catholics in Boston and few in Minnesota, Poles in Boston both go to church more often and are materially better off relative to, say, Swedes in Boston than Poles in Minnesota relative to Swedes in Minnesota.
Got that? Well, how about this conclusion?
Perhaps, Mr Gruber muses, the faithful may be “less stressed out” about life’s daily travails and thus better equipped for success. This may make religion more appealing to some of those who turn up only once a year. But given that Jesus warned his followers against storing up treasures on earth, you might think that this wasn’t the motivation for going to church that he had in mind.
My conclusion: Some economists don’t have a clue. What’s missing is the idea of worship, being driven to our knees by the reality of God becoming man.
Dave, on his knees.
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