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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (51021)	6/20/2004 11:35:00 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794001

What are economists learning about religion? By Tyler Cowen on Religion - Marginal Revolution Blog Harvard economist Robert Barro has been engaged in a major project on economics and religion. Here is an interview, outlining what he has learned. Here are some results: 1. Religious participation is negatively correlated with economic growth. 2. For the most part religious belief (as opposed to participation) is not correlated with economic growth. Belief in hell is positively correlated with growth, however. 3. Religious pluralism makes people more religious. In other words, the more options available, the more likely that religion will be found appealing. 4. As a country becomes wealthier, its people tend to become less religious (the U.S. is an outlier here; we are remarkably religious for our level of wealth). Here is the part that surprised me most: We look at the consequences of having an established state religion. On net, we find that that is actually positive, both for church attendance and for religious beliefs. To some extent, that goes against what Adam Smith said. Smith stressed that established religion would promote monopoly, poor service, and decreased service attendance. He particularly inferred that from looking at the Anglican Church in England. We find, however, that the net relationship is actually positive, and we think that is basically because state religion tends to be accompanied by the state subsidizing religious activity in various ways. I think an economist, particularly Adam Smith, would generally accept the idea that something that is subsidized will tend to occur more often than something that isn't. It's the same as saying that something that is taxed will tend to occur less often. marginalrevolution.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (51021)	6/20/2004 11:42:25 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794001

Aksa Martyrs Brigades to be integrated into Fatah "institutions" It's unclear which way to interpret this - whether al Aksa is taking over some part of Fatah, or Fatah is absorbing al Aksa because al Aksa was formed for the intifadah as the Fatah answer to Hamas' al Hassim brigades, and the intifadah is over. I would guess the second. Of course the separation between PA and terrorists was always a convenient fiction, I should have thought that goes without saying by now. BTW, Barry Rubin has an excellent article in the ME Forum mag summing up the post-Arafat state of Palestinian politics, After Arafat meforum.org which I recommend highly.