The economics of religion.

Business Week has an article about the economic analysis of religion. Here's an interesting passage about terrorism:

The idea that religion involves rational choices extends even to suicide bombers who strike in the name of God. Studies show they are far from depressed loners or brainwashed robots. Instead, says Eli Berman, an associate professor of economics at the University of California at San Diego, suicide bombers typically are motivated young men -- and, rarely, women -- from average backgrounds. Berman, who has studied Hamas, the Taliban, and like groups, says the bombers share a sense of obligation to what amounts to a "mutual-aid society." Says Berman: "They think of themselves as making great sacrifices for a cause -- the way we would think of pilots in the Battle of Britain, or the way the kamikaze thought of themselves."



How should the West fight such terrorism? Berman says one approach would be to promote prosperity through freer markets, which would reduce the supply of potential bombers. [George Mason Professor Laurance R.] Iannaccone gives another answer to the question in a paper called The Market for Martyrs that he presented earlier this year to the American Economic Assn. He argues that the supply of would-be terrorists is impossible to suppress. Instead, it makes sense to reduce demand by disrupting the "firms" that sponsor them.

The article mentions that Adam Smith wrote about religion in "The Wealth of Nations." Here's a passage from Smith that I've used in my Religion and the Constitution class.