Are Clergy Part of the Homo Economicus Clan?

Are clergy part of the homo economicus clan? Do they respond to resources constraints, incentives, and opportunity costs?  A new study  sheds some light on this issue by examining  whether individuals considering seminary enrollment respond to something more than just a 'higher calling.'  Specifically, this study assesses whether prospective seminarians are responsive to wage differentials and swings in the business cycle.  Here is the abstract:

Heeding the Call: Seminary Enrollment and the Business Cycle by D.R. Hughes, D.T. Mitchell, and D.P. Molinari
We examine a panel of divinity school enrollments to explore the motivations of prospective clergy considering post-graduate training in preparation for the ministry. Employing the fixed-effects within estimator allows us to see pecuniary motivations while controlling for the differences between types of divinity school and denomination. We find decisions by prospective clergy to enroll in seminary are responsive to changes in the business cycle as well as salaries. Our results reinforce the view that variation in opportunity costs associated with business cycles plays a significant role in the timing of human capital formation even for those with mostly nonmonetary motivations.

So yes, prospective seminarians are responsive on the margin to market signals. They too are part of the homo economicus clan.  These findings are consistent with those studies that show there is a countercyclical component to religiosity.

Religiosity and the Business Cycle, Again

Ryan Avent and and Ezra Klein both take note of this Lisa Miller article in Newsweek that discusses what appears to be countercyclical  religiosity.  Here, religiosity is measured by church attendance.  If you read the piece you may note that it addition to citing Daniel Hungerman, an economist who is known for his scholarly work on the economics of religion, it also briefly  quotes me.  If you noticed this quote in the article you  probably wondered to yourself "What the heck is Beckworth doing in this piece? Isn't he the Fed-criticizing, nominal GDP-target loving, saving-glut thesis critiquing macroeconomist who blogs from Texas?" Well, yes but it also just so happens that a few years ago I dabbled in the economics of religion where I specifically looked at the relationship between the business cycle and religiosity.  My timing was impeccable given the arrival of the Great Recession and as result my research got some media attention. That is why I got cited in the Newsweek piece. 

In my first foray into this issue I found that religiosity--as measured by weekly attendance and membership growth--was countercyclical especially for folks who hold more absolute beliefs. In my second foray I expanded my study of the business cycle-religiosity link by looking at manifestations of religiosity through both giving of time (e.g. church attendance) and giving of funds (e.g. tithes and offerings) to religious activities.  Here I found that for religious folks giving of time and money act as substitutes in response to economic shocks.  For example, if the economy is booming  and is making  one's time more precious then giving of funds to religious causes increases and giving of time decreases. On the other hand, during a downturn, time becomes less costly and financial giving more costly  so the opposite happens.  

Now the opportunity costs story outlined above is not the only way to interpret these findings. Another reason why church attendance may increase during recessions is that folks are engaged in consumption smoothing as religious communities can act as a form of social insurance. Individuals may turn to churches  for consumption needs such as shelter and groceries as well as intangible consumption needs such as a sense of certainty. Daniel Hungerman in the article mentions another reason may be an increased awareness of community during hard times that pulls people to church. I suspect there is some truth in all of these stories. Here is an earlier post I did on this issue.

The Economist Magazine on Church Attendance During the Recession

The Economist's magazine is reporting on how the recession is affecting church attendance and more-or-less concludes there is no evidence of a link. The article, however, has a number of problems. Let me begin with this paragraph:

Last year David Beckworth, an assistant professor of Economics at Texas State University, examined historic patterns in the size of evangelical congregations and found that, during each recession cycle between 1968 and 2004, membership of evangelical churches jumped by 50%. This report filled the newspapers and TV news-shows at the height of the depression panic just before Christmas; but the report’s findings focused on evangelicals, and do not apply to Americans at large.

I did not find membership jumps by 50% during recessions, rather the membership growth rate jumps by that amount. Moreover, while that 50% bump in the growth rate applies only to evangelicals this finding was only part of my study. In fact, the first part of my paper uses a national Pew Survey taken in November 2001 to see if after controlling for evangelicals, 911, and a host of other confounding factors whether one's employment status affects the likelihood of weekly attendance. I found that being unemployed did increase weekly religious attendance in a statistically significant manner.

What my findings show is that one cannot look at the national average and determine if the recession is affecting religious attendance; one has to look at those folks who have been adversely affected the recession to make that call. Frank Newport and the folks at Gallup seem to miss this point. They only look at the headline number and never dig deeper. Gallup simply is not looking at the right data to answer this question. I have not seen John Green's work from Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, but I suspect he too is looking at the headline weekly attendance number only. I would encourage Frank Newport, John Green, and other interested observers to take a look at my entire paper here.

What makes this frustrating is that I made this point to the Economist's correspondent who contacted me about this story. I have also contacted the folks at Gallup on this same issue back when this issue came up late last year.

LA Daily News on the Business Cycle and Religiosity

The LA Daily News has an interesting article on the "spiritual tidal wave" being created by this recession. It is a nice complement to the earlier New York Times article on this topic and makes an even stronger case for the link between the business cycle and religiosity.

In Time of Economic Hardship, Houses of Worship Experience 'Spiritual Tidal Wave'

Throughout Los Angeles County and the nation, ministers and rabbis say they've seen dramatic increases in attendance in recent months as people worried about the worsening economy and turmoil in the world turn to religion.

Some houses of worship are using overflow rooms, hosting presentations to help people with their finances and giving sermons on the economic downturn, world events and Bible prophecy.

"There is a spiritual hunger and openness for God that I have not seen since 9-11," said Kirby, who estimates that his congregation has swelled from 550 to 750 worshippers in just the last four months.

"But this is a bigger and more sustained wave. The increase in church attendance after 9-11 only lasted a short time. But we have seen this now for four months and it's pretty much every Sunday. It's a spiritual tidal wave that is sustaining."

As attendance at churches in South America, Africa, China, Russia and other parts of the world is "exploding in growth," Jim Tolle, pastor of 25,000-member The Church On The Way in Van Nuys, said "pockets of revival or awakening" are also occurring in the United States.

[...]

In America, we used to feel like we were safe and secure as a nation," Durham said. "I think 9-11 took away safe and the recession has taken away secure. And so ... people are looking to faith and looking to God for reassurance and security."

[...]

At Shepherd of the Hills church in Porter Ranch, Senior Pastor Dudley C. Rutherford said he spent the fall preaching about Bible prophecy and has seen attendance grow from an average of 8,030 last year to 9,673 this year, a 17 percent increase. Rutherford attributes the increase to concerns about the economy and curiosity about world events...

Is the Recession Really Better for Evangelicals?

Paul Vitello's New York Times article that cited my research has started something of debate as to whether Evangelical Protestant churches truly are benefiting from the current recession. The debate began when Frank Newport of Gallup replied that polling numbers do not show any overall increase in weekly church attendance, a fact gleefully promoted by Jack Shafer of Slate and later challenged by Mark Silk. More recently, Tobin Grant of Christianity Today weighed in on the matter and concluded that there is no "evidence that evangelical churches would benefit more than other religious groups." His piece was of particular interest to me because he references my work and along the way makes this claim:

[Paul] Vitello should have interviewed a few more sociologists or economists, who would have told him that the link between recessions and revivals is just myth. This may have helped avoid the back-and-forth that has resulted in confusion over a topic where we need much more clarity.

Unfortunately, Grant himself adds to the confusion by making this brazen claim. Had he read my paper fully or knew the literature better on this issue he would have been more cautious in his conclusions. There is both evidence and theory that suggest a link between the business cycle and religiosity. Moreover, this evidence and theory also points to evangelical Protestants benefiting more from recessions than their mainline counterparts. Here is a quick overview.

Stephen Sales in a 1972 study titled "Economic Threat and the Determinant of Conversion Rates in Authoritarian and Nonauthoritarian Churches" found that the conversion rates for more conservative denominations to be countercyclical while for more liberal denominations they are procyclical. J.H. McCann did a study in 1999 titled "Threatening Times and Flucutations in Church Membership" that similarly used the authoritarian-nonauthoritarian classification scheme. His conclusions mirrored Sales. Although their studies were not limited to Protestant denominations, there is a close mapping in them between the authoritarian and Evangelical denominations. My own study also looked at membership patterns for a sample of 25 Protestant denominations over the years 1968-2004. I found a systematic countercyclical component to the membership of the evangelical Protestant denominations during this time. Specifically, evangelicals grew significantly faster in recession years, when unemployment picked up, and when the stock market tanked. This was not the case for the mainline Protestants. Grant, however, tries to dismiss these findings:

Beckworth's findings were limited to changes in total annual membership of 24 Protestant denominations. Beckworth acknowledges that this is merely a proxy for other types of religious activities such as attending worship. But as CT readers well know, church membership means different things in different denominations. Some have been members since infancy. Others attend the same church for decades and never become members. Membership also changes for reasons other than changes in religiosity. When a diocese, synod, or other group of churches leaves in protest, the membership numbers decline dramatically... At other times, church membership numbers may be inflated and need to be corrected.

The problem with Grant's critique is that while everything he said may be true, it cannot explain why for 30+ years the above mentioned economic measures were systematically associated in a countercyclical fashion with evangelical Protestant membership and not with mainline Protestant membership. The easy answer is that while all these other idiosyncratic factors may have been influencing membership, so was the economy. In fact, this understanding is consistent with my findings: about 1/3 of the variation in evangelical Protestant membership growth is explained by the economy. That leaves the rest to the Grant's other factors.

To be clear, a key assumption in these findings is that increased religious participation by U.S. Protestants will be manifested in increased attendance at churches and, in turn, in increased church membership. While increased religious participation could also be manifested in other ways, it should been seen at a minimum in increased church attendance and eventually in increased membership if some of the new attendees formally join the church. Yes, ther factors will also be influencing membership numbers, but given what the data shows this assumption is reasonable.

Now even if you accept Grant's critique of the membership findings, you then have to wrestle with the other findings in my paper. Primarily, the finding that during the last recession in 2001 employment status was a significant determinant of weekly attendance at church. This data was based on a pew survey and controlled for a number of confounding factors, including the 911 effect on attendance. What I found is that if one were unemployed there was a greater probability that he/she attended church weekly. Moreover, being unemployed only had an effect on evangelical Protestants.

This part of the paper also helps shed light on Newport's finding that overall attendance has not gone up. My findings for this period showed about 42% of population attended church weekly, almost identical to Newport's finding for this year. But this number by itself it does not necessarily shed light on the effect of the recession. What is needed to see what part of the population that is adversely affected by the recession is attending church on a weekly basis. That is how I found a higher rate of attendance in the 2001 recession. I suspect Gallup would too if they sliced up their data this way.

Finally, There are compelling a priori reasons why why evangelical Protestants should benefit more from recessions than mainlines Protestants. First, evangelicals sell a different product than mainlines. Of interest here, is that they sell more certainty. Mainline churches are more likely to have fewer absolute beliefs, question the Bible more, and raise more questions about God's role in human affairs. Evangelical Protestants, on the other hand, are more likely to sell a powerful God that can get you a job and bring you financial peace. For someone who is unemployed and trying to feed a family, the evangelical message is far more compelling. Second, evangelicals on average come from a lower socioeconomic background than mainlines. This means they are more likely to have a higher opportunity cost for religion. As a consequence, during economic booms religious participation becomes too costly while during recession it becomes cheap for them. The opposite holds true for mainline Protestants. (See here for more on these channels. There is also a social capital formation channel I discuss in the paper.) These stories imply that evangelical Protestants have more to gain during an economic downturn.

Let me close by noting that while I believe there is evidence and theory to support a link between the business cycle and Protestant religiosity, only time will tell is it will be borne out in this recession. I am, however, certain that calls to dismiss this link at any level are not well founded.

Update: The recession is the not the same everywhere in the United States. As I noted here, some states like Texas and Oklahoma are still adding jobs while states like California and Florida are a workers nightmare. Consequently, the benefit to evangelical churches should be occurring more in these states.

The Business Cycle and Religiosity on CNN

Consistent with my research, CNN did a segment that shows evangelical Protestant churches grow during economic downturns:

By the way, if you looked close enough you might have seen me briefly in the video clip. Here is more from another CNN Interview:

For a more thorough discussion of why evangelical Protestants are so sensitive to swings in business cycles see here.

Update: Here is the New York Times article mentioned in the video clip.

Religiosity and the Business Cycle in the New York Times

Welcome to those who read about my research on the business cycle and religiosity in the New York Times or at Marginal Revolution. If you are interested in the paper "Praying for a Recession" go here. If you want a less technical overview on the paper see this discussion at Mark Thoma's blog. I recently gave another paper along the same lines at the Southern Economic Association that can be accessed here and was discussed here.

More on the Opportunity Cost of Religion

Mark Thoma points us to a paper by Jonathan Gruber and Daniel Hungerman titled "The Church vs. the Mall: What Happens When Religion Faces Increased Secular Competition?" The authors show that when you increase the opportunity costs of church attendance--in this case by repealing Sunday blue laws that in turn open up other opportunities on Sunday like shopping at the mall--there could be a decline in attendance. There may also be an effect on religious financial giving:

When the laws are repealed, there are two possible effects. First, time devoted to religious pursuits unambiguously falls, as individuals choose to devote more time to work and more secular consumption. Second, there is an ambiguous effect on religious contributions. On the one had incomes may rise due to new work activities, and this could increase contributions. On the other hand, new secular consumption opportunities compete with religious giving for a share of the individual’s budget, and this could decrease contributions.

What, then, do the authors find?

Thus, secular competition does matter for religious participation: increased secular opportunities for work and leisure on Sundays lead to less time at church and lower religious contributions.

The authors also find that the repeal of the blue laws lead to a significant pick up in drinking and drug use by religious people. The authors conclude by discussing two implications of their research:

First, this finding serves to validate economic models of religiosity, as discussed extensively by Iannaccone (1998). Religious participation is not independent of economic influences such as the opportunity cost of church-going.

I concur and believe it is consistent with our earlier discussions on the business cycle and religiosity. Now to the second implication:

Second, this finding can be a valuable input into the discussion of the regulation of religion and substitutable activities. Absent strong negative externalities, there seems little argument for restricting the days of the week that commerce can take place. But religious participation may be one of those activities with such externalities. As such, secular regulations such as blue laws which promote religious participation can have external effects. Whether those external effects are sufficiently large to justify restrictions on commerce is an excellent question for future research.

I believe the negative externalities they are referring to is the steep pick up in drinking and drug use by religious people after the repeal of the blue laws. However, do we really want to mix church and state because some people are now making bad choices? I certainly would not want to make the case for more state intervention in order to promote religious participation, especially one that promotes participation on a particular day of worship. What about those who worship on Saturday or who do not worship at all? There are all kinds of problems with this supposed implication.

With that said, this is an interesting paper--take a look.

Economic Conditions and Religiosity

Andrew Gelman graciously takes note of my research on the business cycle and religiosity over at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science. One of his blog readers emailed me and requested I explain more thoroughly how macroeconomic shocks could affect religiosity. Below is an excerpt from a forthcoming article where I attempt to explain the relationship in less technical terms :

The first thing economic theory says is that the cost of being religious can change over the business cycle. During an economic boom individuals may find increased opportunities for higher earnings. The potential for higher earnings, in turn, make time-intensive religious activities like church attendance costly for these individuals. Consider, for example, a Southern Baptist from a low-income family being offered the opportunity of getting overtime pay to work at a retail store on Sunday morning. For this Southern Baptist, going to church suddenly becomes a lot more costly and thus, increases the likelihood of him opting for work instead of church. On the other hand, during an economic downturn, time-intensive religious activities become less costly as opportunities for earnings decline. Here, the overtime opportunity for the Southern Baptist disappears and church attendance suddenly becomes more affordable. This idea that higher earnings lead individuals to substitute out of leisure activities, like going to church, into more work and vice versa is called the substitution effect. It implies there should be a countercyclical component to religiosity.

There are, however, two countervailing forces against the substitution effect. The first one is called the income effect and says that the higher earnings also mean individuals can work fewer hours than before and still get the same pay. They, therefore, have more time for leisure activities, like church attendance, without a loss of income. Consider, for example, an Episcopalian whose consulting business was able to increase its fees because of the increased demand for its services during an economic boom. The Episcopalian can now afford to take on fewer consulting projects, without a loss of income, and enjoy more time at church. During an economic downturn, however, the consulting fees would drop. The Episcopalian would now have to work more hours to maintain his income, leaving less time for church. The second countervailing force is something called the wealth effect. The wealth effect says that as individuals’ wealth increases from valuations gains in their homes, stocks, and other assets they have less need to save and thus less need to work. In turn, there should be more time for church attendance and vice versa. Imagine now that the Episcopalian had a large amount of funds in the stock market during a stock market boom. His wealth would increase dramatically and make leisure activities like church attendance more affordable. Both of these effects imply there could be a procyclical component to religious activities.

Economic theory is generally silent on which of these effects dominates the decision to work. Research has shown, however, that evangelicals Protestants typically fall into a lower socioeconomic grouping than mainline Protestants (Pyle, 2006). This suggests that the substitution effect should be more important for evangelical Protestants. In other words, since evangelical Protestants are starting from a lower income level, like the Southern Baptist above, they should be eager to take advantage of higher earning opportunities, whereas mainline Protestants, like the Episcopal above, who already have relatively high income levels may see less need to do so. Moreover, mainline Protestants have more wealth and should therefore be more sensitive to the wealth effect compared to their poorer evangelical Protestant brethren. A priori, then, the changing cost of being religious perspective points to evangelical Protestants being more countercyclical in their religiosity than mainline Protestants.

The second thing economic theory had to say about this issue is that individuals generally desire to have a steady stream of housing, clothes, food, and other consumption over the business cycle. During a recession individuals may become unemployed or find their earnings fall. To prevent these developments from being disruptive, individuals may turn to churches for consumption needs such as shelter and groceries. Individuals may also turn to churches for less tangible consumption needs such as a sense of certainty and divine guidance in a job search. Such a response implies there should be a countercyclical component to religiosity. Note, however, that the wealthier mainline Protestants are in far less need of churches to provide consumption for them. In addition, mainline Protestant denominations often place less emphasis on absolute truths than evangelical ones and, as a result, are not able to create the same sense of certainty or appeal to an all powerful, job-providing God. Individuals, therefore, may choose to join an evangelical Protestant denomination rather a mainline one during a recession.[1] Consequently, the consumption smoothing ability of churches also points to a stronger countercyclical component for evangelical Protestants.

[1] Conversely, these same individuals may find a mainline Protestant denomination more appealing than an evangelical one during an economic upturn when the need for certainty and employment are less pressing concerns.

Update: If the SSRN link to my paper is not working, try this one.
Update 2: WSJ's Real Time Economics the Economist's View also take note of my research.

The Opiate of the Elite or Simply the Income Effect Dominating?

Andrew Gelman et al. have a article over at Vox EU titled "Opiate of the Elites." These authors show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, religion is not the opiate of the poor masses, but of those with higher incomes or the elites. They find that being religious increases the probability of someone voting based on moral and cultural concerns if that person is in a higher income group. Being religious and in a lower income group reduces the probability. Here is one of their graphs that captures this relationship in terms of who voted for GW Bush:

The authors conclude that "income predicts how you vote—if you are religious." They explain this finding by appealing to a view of "post-materialism—the idea that, as people and societies get richer, their concerns shift from mundane bread-and-butter issues to cultural and spiritual concerns." Stated differently, "economic concerns are more important in poorer areas, with social and religious issues mattering more among the rich."

If one assumes that voting for moral and cultural reasons also implies other time commitments to these issues (staying informed by reading and watching TV, discussing issues with friends, supporting rallies, etc.), then these results could also be interpreted by using what economic theory tell us about the labor-leisure choice via the substitution and income effects. For those individuals in the lower income group, it is likely that the substitution effect--which says the opportunity costs of social activism, forgone earnings, is too high--dominates. Their time is better spent working than worrying about social issues. On the other hand, those individuals in higher income groups most likely have the income effect--which says they can afford leisure activities like social activism--dominate. Simply, as individuals become richer they can afford to become more engaged in these social issues, if that is what they want.

This is a theme I touch on in my own research that looks at the relationship between the business cycle and religiosity. I find that mainline Protestant denominations--which tend to have higher income earners--do well in terms of growth during economic booms while evangelical Protestants denominations--which tend to have lower income earners--actually struggle. (During economic downturns the outcomes are reversed--evangelicals Protestant denominations thrive.) In general, I find mainline Protestants to have a strong procyclical component to their religiosity while evangelicals have a strong countercyclical component. These findings can be explained by again appealing to the labor-leisure choice explained by economic theory.

So, in short, the fascinating findings of Gelman et al., then, can be explained using standard economic theory.

Update: Andrew Gelman responds here and I provide some clarification here.

What Does the Recession Mean for Religiosity?

I have received some inquiries about my research that looks at the relationship between the business cycle and religiosity. I have posted previously about it, but given the increased interest and the fact that the U.S. appears to be going into--if not already in--a recession I am reposting the abstract and the link to the paper.

Praying for a Recession: The Business Cycle and Protestant Church Growth in the United States (link)

Abstract: Some observers believe the business cycle influences religiosity. This possibility is empirically explored in this paper by examining the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and Protestant religiosity in the United States. The findings of this paper suggest there is a strong countercyclical component to religiosity for evangelical Protestants while for mainline Protestants there is both a weak countercyclical component and a strong procyclical component.

How Much Time Do Americans Allocate to Religion?

This past November I presented a paper at the SSSR/ASREC annual meetings that looked at the relationship between the business cycle and religiosity (see previous posting on this paper). I was privileged to present my paper in a session where Ariela Keysar and Barry Kosmin gave their paper titled "Measuring Religious Commitment and Secularization Through Time-Use Data." This paper examines the standard labor economic question of how individuals in the United States allocate their time, with special emphasis on how much time is spent on religious and spiritual activities. The study looks at allocation of time for a typical weekday as well as for the presumably religious Sunday.

This study uses data from data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey (ATUS) over the years 2003 to 2006. Ariela and Barry explain that the "ATUS asks people to keep a diary and describe in detail their daily activities, without the prompts or cues that are a feature of interviewer surveys. There is therefore no reference to religion or any other domain. This methodology reduces over-reporting of religious practice by minimizing the tendency towards a social desirability bias that has been identified as a problem of many surveys of American religion especially of Sunday worship." This study, therefore, provides a more robust measure of religiosity in America than past studies.

Okay, what exactly do they find? Here are some key excerpts:

"The average American spends a total of 3 minutes on 'religious and spiritual activities' on the normal weekday. This is because only 4.4% of the population actually reports participating in this form of behavior. Among this small minority of participants, 1.12 hours on average are actually spent on religious activities. Weekdays are for work and ATUS confirms this. The average American spends 4.55 hours working on the normal weekday. Participants in work are 58% of the adult population and among these workers the time spent on work related activities averages 7.81 hours."

3 minutes a day? Wow! If us highly religious Americans spend only 3 minutes on average a weekday on religious and spiritual activities, then what is the time spent on religious and spiritual activities in other advanced economies that are less religious?

"This imbalance between work and religious activities on ordinary weekdays is to be expected though the actual figures are stark. One can assume that Sundays will be much different. Sunday is historically the Lord’s Day and a day of rest when government and educational facilities are closed as are many business establishments. Indeed the average American spends a total of 33 minutes on religious activities on a Sunday that is 11 times the amount of a weekday. In fact 25% of Americans attend Sunday worship services; more that 6 times the weekday norm. The average worshipper spends 2.06 hours on religious activities on a Sunday. Sunday is evidently the time for religion but participation at the beginning of the 21st Century is very much a minority interest."

Here again, I wonder what is the time spent on religious and spiritual activities on Sundays in other advanced economies?

"The ATUS findings indicate that the pattern of the traditional American Sunday has changed and the U.S. is becoming a more secular society."

Below are two tables from the paper.

So even on Sundays, religious and spiritual activities are far from the most important activity. In fact, the work category on this 'holy' day is allocated more time. One discussant made the point that maybe these numbers understate/overstate the quality of time allocated to each activity. This point made me wonder if it were possible to have a positive productivity shock to religious and spiritual activities? If so, less time would be needed to generate the same religious and spiritual outcome. Could this possibility explain some of the relatively low share of time allocated to religious and spiritual activities?

The Business Cycle and Religiosity

Does economic distress increase religiosity and vice versa? This is a question that first intrigued me back in 2001, during the last U.S. recession. I was visiting my sister in Atlanta, Georgia and attended her church. During a part of the church service a microphone was passed around to individuals who then shared with the rest of the congregation what was going on in their life. Almost everyone who participated during this open mike time had just lost their job and were asking God to find a new one for them. As the right side of my brain sympathized with these suffering individuals, the left side of the brain got excited and started thinking about the econometric possibilities. I wondered, might this experience be reflecting a much broader, systematic relationship between church attendance and the business cycle? If so, were would I get data to test for such a relationship? And would this relationship be different for different denominations? I was curious and wanted to find out more.

I was a graduate student back in 2001 and had other pressings issues that put this interesting question on hold. I recently started looking at this issue again and now have a working paper titled "Praying for a Recession: The Business Cycle and Church Growth." I will be presenting this paper at the annual meetings for the Association for the Study of Religions, Economics, and Culture (ASREC) in November. My abstract reads as follows:

Abstract: Some observers believe the business cycle influences religiosity. This possibility is empirically explored in this paper by examining the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and Protestant religiosity in the United States. The findings of this paper suggest there is a strong countercyclical component to religiosity for evangelical Protestants while for mainline Protestants there is both a weak countercyclical component and a strong procyclical component.

This paper is preliminary and I would appreciate any comments on it.