We find that there are lessons to be learned from developing countries, but considerable economic research is required for replication of programs in developed countries, and effective evaluation. Religion Still Matters Brooks B. Hull Research by Lipford, McCormick, and Tollison and by Hull and Bold shows a negative relationship between church membership and crime rates. The results are important but do not employ the most recent available data. This paper reproduces Hull and Bold's results using more contemporary 1990 data by United States county. This paper also compares 1980 and 1990 county data.
Results are consistent with the earlier research.
County crime rates are significantly negatively related to county church membership share. Other factors affecting county crime rates include unemployment, poverty, expenditures on police, population density, and income. The study focuses on several empirical issues particularly endogeneity and multicollinearity problems. Correcting for these biases and applying a more parsimonious variant of ACS' model at the Kansas county level for 1980-97, I find that county income growth is associated not only with financial depth but also with changes in bank branching policy and tax burden. It also shows that adding an in-class CLL can be an effective alternative method of teaching microeconomics.