We mentioned that church attendance might also measure the social capital built
up through organized religion. We also noted that church attendance could proxy for the
influence of organized religion on laws and regulations that affect economic behavior.
Our results indicate that, for given religious beliefs, the overall effect from greater church
attendance is to reduce economic growth. This overall effect combines the resources
used up by the religion sector, the social-capital aspect of this sector, and the influence of
organized religion on laws and regulations. In subsequent research, we plan to use Fox
and Sandler’s (2003) measures of religious based laws and regulations to sort out these
effects from organized religion.