|
on Economic Growth |
| By: | Becker, Sascha O. (University of Oxford); Panin, Amma (Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/CORE, Belgium); Pfaff, Steven; Rubin, Jared |
| Abstract: | This chapter examines the role of religion in economic development, both historically and today. Religion's influence varies globally, with high religiosity in countries like Pakistan and low rates in China. Despite declines in some Western countries, religion remains influential worldwide, with projected growth in Muslim populations due to higher fertility rates. Religion continues to shape societal norms and institutions, such as education and politics, even after its direct influence fades. The chapter explores how religious institutions and norms have impacted economic outcomes, focusing on both persistence and decline. It also examines cultural transmission, institutional entrenchment, networks, and religious competition as mechanisms sustaining religion's influence. We explore the relationship between religion and secularization, showing that economic development does not always reduce religiosity. Lastly, the chapter highlights gaps in the literature and suggests future research areas on the evolving role of religion in economic development. |
| Keywords: | Religion ; Economic Development ; Religiosity ; Cultural Transmission ; Secularization ; Historical Persistence ; Religious Competition ; Networks ; Social Norms |
| JEL: | D85 I25 J10 N30 O33 O43 P48 Z10 Z12 |
| Date: | 2025–03–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2025006 |
| By: | Nathan Schild; Jamel Saadaoui; Patrick Rondé |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to re-investigate one of the most prominent predictions of Neo-Schumpeterian growth theory—namely, that economic development is augmented by investments in R&D—by stressing that such a prediction applies only when conditional on institutional and socio-cultural stability. To achieve this aim, an unbalanced panel data set of 23 OECD members and accession candidate countries from 1998 to 2018 is employed to estimate a Type III growth equation extended by interaction terms between R&D intensity and government/religious stability. Using a full set of macro controls and a full set of country-specific fixed effects, it is found that the marginal association of R&D and economic development strictly increases with institutional stability. Quantitatively, a 1-standard-deviation increase in R&D intensity is found to have a negligible association with GDP per capita when government stability is low but raises GDP per capita by up to 13.3% when government stability is high. Moreover, a symmetric relation is found such that a 1-standard-deviation increase in R&D intensity raises GDP per capita by up to 12.9% when religious stability is high. In contrast, the unconditional association between R&D and economic development is found to be small and statistically indistinguishable from 0 when religious stability is low. |
| Keywords: | R&D intensity; economic development; neo-Schumpeterian growth; institutions; government stability; religious stability; technology diffusion; OECD members and candidates panel. |
| JEL: | O30 O40 O43 P16 Z12 C23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2026-04 |
| By: | Gregory Casey (Williams College); ; ; |
| Abstract: | "I present a simple dynamic model that allows students to determine whether, and under what conditions, economic growth is compatible with environmental sustainability. The model captures two key forces: the slowing of economic growth and the decoupling of economic growth from environmental damage. In this way, it connects closely with ongoing public discussions focusing on degrowth and decoupling. The model highlights a key observation that students often find counter-intuitive: economic growth is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for achieving a sustainability target, such as keeping global average surface temperatures from increasing by 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The model is solved by taking the sum of a geometric series. It is designed for undergraduate courses that do not require calculus, but could be applicable in a wider range of settings." |
| Keywords: | Sustainability, Economic Growth, Climate Change, Undergraduate Education |
| Date: | 2025–07–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2025_106 |
| By: | Palomera, David; Starke, Peter |
| Abstract: | The literature on growth dependencies increasingly calls for post-growth welfare states capable of functioning without reliance on GDP growth in order to remain within planetary limits. Yet empirical research on the relationship between welfare state arrangements and economic growth remains remarkably scarce, even in policy domains where growth dependence appears most plausible, such as pensions. Using panel data of 20 OECD countries from 1971 to 2022, we examine the relationship between public pension spending per capita and replacement rates (i.e. benefit generosity) on the one hand, and GDP per capita on the other. We find that while pension spending per capita remains partially coupled to GDP, pension replacement rates have become decoupled - and in many instances negatively coupled - already at relatively modest income levels. This is consistent with the literature on the social limits to growth, where decoupling likewise occurs at modest income levels. We find that labor-market factors - especially labor participation - are consistently and strongly associated with higher pension benefits. These findings have important policy implications, highlighting that the sustainability of pension systems in post-growth contexts may depend less on infinite economic expansion than on institutional and labor-market policy choices. |
| Keywords: | welfare state, pensions, post-growth, degrowth, sustainable welfare, growth dependence, decoupling |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:penwps:338100 |
| By: | Gregory Casey (Williams College); ; ; |
| Abstract: | "How will energy availability affect economic growth? Carefully identified microeconomic estimates suggest that the short-run impact of energy availability on economic outcomes is small. Building on recent advances in the environmental macroeconomics literature, I examine the difference between short- and long-run impacts of energy policy in two quantitative growth models. Both models suggest that the long-run impact of energy availability on output is almost twice as large as the short-run impact. Policies that increase energy availability may be more effective at boosting output than suggested in the existing literature." |
| Keywords: | Energy, Economic Growth, Development |
| JEL: | O44 Q43 |
| Date: | 2025–07–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2025_109 |
| By: | Makram El-Shagi (Center for Financial Development and Stability at Henan University, and School of Economics at Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan); Paul Lukuliko Philemon (Center for Financial Development and Stability at Henan University, and School of Economics at Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan) |
| Abstract: | We examine how a more hawkish policy stance – defined as an above- median long-run inflation semi-elasticity of the policy rate – affects economic growth in 37 inflation-targeting countries. To this end, we estimate time-varying, bias-corrected forward-looking Taylor rules for all inflation- targeting countries for which the data permit such estimation. Our results point to sizable growth effects, exceeding 0.5 percent annually, for countries with a more hawkish policy stance. This suggests that the growth benefits reported in the previous literature on inflation targeting are primarily driven by a small subset of countries that react more forcefully to inflation. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, inflation targeting, monetary policy reaction function, hawkishness |
| JEL: | E52 E58 O40 O47 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fds:dpaper:202601 |
| By: | Georgios Tsiachtsiras (White Research SRL); Sergio Petralia (Utrecht University); Ernest Miguelez (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona); Rosina Moreno (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This article studies how anti-scientific sentiment can shape the direction of technological change, focusing on the tensions between the Catholic Church and the French Republic in late nineteenth-century France. We construct a novel geo-referenced database of French patents filed at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (1838-1960) and combine it with historical measures of religiosity at the departmental level. We find that areas with higher shares of refractory clergy, those who refused to swear allegiance to the revolutionary state, produced significantly fewer electrical patents between 1890 and 1914. Crucially, this negative relationship does not extend to other technological fields or to overall patenting activity. Neither education nor migration explains this pattern. We also show that early electrical patenting predicts later activity in computer and communication technologies, consistent with path-dependent technological development. These findings suggest that conservative institutional environments did not suppress innovation broadly, but selectively discouraged disruptive technologies that challenged established norms, with consequences that persisted for decades. |
| Keywords: | innovation, patent data, religion, path-dependence, technological change JEL classification: L92, N73, O31, O33, P25 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:202602 |
| By: | Georgios Tsiachtsiras (White Research SRL, Belgium.); Sergio Petralia (Department of Economic Geography, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.); Ernest Miguelez (AQR-IREA, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.); Rosina Moreno (AQR-IREA, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.) |
| Abstract: | This article studies how anti-scientific sentiment can shape the direction of technological change, focusing on the tensions between the Catholic Church and the French Republic in late nineteenth-century France. We construct a novel geo-referenced database of French patents filed at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (1838-1960) and combine it with historical measures of religiosity at the departmental level. We find that areas with higher shares of refractory clergy, those who refused to swear allegiance to the revolutionary state, produced significantly fewer electrical patents between 1890 and 1914. Crucially, this negative relationship does not extend to other technological fields or to overall patenting activity. Neither education nor migration explains this pattern. We also show that early electrical patenting predicts later activity in computer and communication technologies, consistent with path-dependent technological development. These findings suggest that conservative institutional environments did not suppress innovation broadly, but selectively discouraged disruptive technologies that challenged established norms, with consequences that persisted for decades. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Patent Data; Religion; Path-dependence; Technological Change. JEL classification: L92; N73; O31; O33; P25. |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:202606 |