While Harvard University researchers found that a nation’s economic growth coincides with its population’s belief in heaven and hell, a UT professor attributes this growth, in part, to Protestant missionaries.
The pair from Harvard, Rachel McCleary and Robert Barro, focused on religion’s effect on economic development and the effect of economic development on religion in their studies from 2003 and 2006.
McCleary and Barro’s report draws on information compiled from three surveys and an encyclopedia of religion, that incorporated international data.
They found that as countries’ economies improve, people tend to participate less in religious activities but their religiosity actually increases. Similarly, church attendance uses resources, including money and time, and thus negatively impacts the economy.
“It’s natural to see a decline in religious participation as a country grows richer because your time becomes more valuable, and you are going to be more productive,” McCleary said. “That doesn’t mean your religious beliefs go down.”
She said the productivity learned through religiosity pushes people further in the workplace, helping them succeed and improving the overall economic situation of the country.
“The religion teaches you values like trust and working hard and honesty,” McCleary said. “It’s contributing to those values that leads you to be more productive.”
Robert Woodberry, a sociology professor at UT, said the research out of Harvard is flawed, and the team was wrong in applying the same belief and attendance measures to all religious groups, despite cultural differences.
Woodberry said that while Buddhists and Hindus may believe in hell, their perception of it is different from the Christian one. In addition, he said because church attendance is not required in certain religions, using these measures as a means of comparison does not render accurate results.
“The mismeasurement is correlated with something that is driving economic growth, and if the effect were real, we would expect it to happen in different regions of the world,” Woodberry said. “We would expect the pattern to be consistent, which it’s not.”
Woodberry argues that the spread of literacy, technology and civic institutions by Protestant missionaries plays a larger role in economic development.
He said the missionaries became involved in promoting literacy in the late 1800s — mostly so people could read the Bible — in a time when the elite tried to keep books from the poor, middle-class and women. As other religious groups saw the effectiveness of printing materials, they too started printing, and competition heightened, he said.
“The religious competition was spurring the transfer of resources to poor people and women, and over time that changes the class structure,” he said. “Once you have a society where there is a high level of religious competition and freedom, through ultimately religious pressure, comes a high quality state of education,” he said.
This, in turn, has led to economic growth and development, Woodberry said.
UT professor challenges Harvard economic study
Published: Thursday, November 19, 2009
Updated: Thursday, November 19, 2009
 "Photo: Peyton McGee/The Daily Texan")
Peyton McGee/The Daily Texan
Robert Woodberry, a sociology professor at UT, sits in the courtyard of the University Presbyterian Church on Wednesday. Woodberry recently contested a pair of Harvard professors’ research that claimed economic growth is determined by a population’s belief in heaven and hell.
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