Hylton, Rodionova and Deng published an enlightening paper entitled “Church and State: An Economic Analysis” (American Law and Economics Review, V13, N2, 2011) that examines consequences of regulation, taxation and subsidization of religion on a country’s level of corruption, economic growth and income inequality. In part, their abstract reads
The results suggest that laws and practices burdening religion enhance corruption. Laws burdening religion reduce economic growth and are positively associated with inequality.
I will describe their paper in more detail in a future post but now I would like to focus on a similar question. What is the impact of corruption on the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Growth is measured by the increase in the number of members between 20012 and 2011. The data on corruption was provided by Transparency International and their 2012 index is reproduced in the world map, “Corruption Index by Country.” The higher the index, the lower the level of corruption. Graphically, the darker the blue, the less corrupt the government. The colors move from blue to green, then yellow, brown and red. Red also represents missing data. The corruption index did not include Greenland, South Sudan, Western Sahara, and French Guiana.
