I. Private Voluntary Organizations in International Relief and Development: 1939 - 2005

This comparative, longitudinal study uses data to assess institutional change and state relations in international relief and development from 1939 to 2004. Since World War II, private voluntary organizations have played a major role in U.S. efforts at international relief and development. Prior to World War II, the United States did not actively engage in peace-time foreign assistance. With the reconstruction of Europe and the threat of Communism, the U.S. federal government rightfully perceived foreign aid as a critical dimension of American foreign policy.

This book (forthcoming Oxford University Press) looks at the growth of private voluntary agencies in international relief and development from 1939 to 2005. Private voluntary organizations (PVOs) - American Friends Service Committee, Oxfam, CARE, World Vision, and Catholic Relief Services, to name just a few - perform a vital function. They are the expression of American compassion overseas, a compassion that was formalized during World War II and has continued to grow since. This book explores the relationship between PVOs and the U.S. federal government. This nexus is a neglected yet vital connection between the American people and their government.

The contribution of this book is to understand how the PVOs we support and believe represent our humanitarian concerns interact with the federal government. A significant aspect of the interaction between PVOs and government is economic. By this I mean grants, contracts, subsidies (food, excess government property), and shipping the government provides to the agencies. To measure trends, I constructed a large dataset on revenue and expenditures from 1939 to 2005 for all U.S.-based PVOs engaged in international assistance and registered with the federal government. The data set is new and the most comprehensive on U.S.-based PVOs. Of particular interest is the interplay between public revenue (from the federal government and from international organizations and other government) and private revenue, that is, funds PVOs raise from the public. Do funds a PVO receives from the federal government, international organizations, and other governments serve as a magnet for subsequent private support? Or, once a PVO receives federal revenue, is it likely to continue to do so? And, in increasing amounts? If so, does accepting federal dollars compromise the mission of the PVO? A particular concern is the effect of United States foreign policy and funding on recipient organizations and their values.

Two recent trends in the field of international relief and developmet - increasing private funds to PVOs (decreasing federal dollars) and increasing awards to commercial enterprises - has significantly altered the nature of international relief and development. If the U.S. government, through its funding, is commercializing international humanitarian work, what is the effect on American values as embodied in the PVOs that since WWII have been the primary instruments of American foreign assistance? Are commercial enterprises more successful than PVOs? Should federal involvement in international relief and development be abolished all together?

II. Religion and Political Economy

The economics of religion is a growing enterprise, with principal origins going back to Adam Smith (1791) and Max Weber (1930). Modern research applies the Smith-Weber framework theoretically and empirically to the two-way interaction between religion and political economy. With religion viewed as a dependent variable, a central question is how economic development and political institutions affect religious participation and beliefs. With religion as an independent variable, a key issue is how religiosity affects individual characteristics, such as work ethic, honesty, and thrift, and thereby influences economic performance.

With Robert J. Barro, we seek to explain how religiosity responds to economic development and to government regulation, subsidy, and suppression ("Which Countries Have State Religions"). We want to know why some countries establish official state religions and how the associated subsidies and regulations influence religious activity. We look at state religion as a form of political-regulatory institution and seek to learn why this institution is present in some countries and at some points in time. We find that the probability of having a state religion in 2000 or 1970 depends strongly on the situation in 1900 but much more so, for countries that experienced no major change in political regime during the 20th century. Communist governments tend not to have state religion - only one Communist country (Somalia in 1970) had a state religion in the usual sense. However, a history of Communism does not significantly affect the current probability of state religion. Greater concentration of religious adherence is positively related to state religion, and most of this relation reflects causation from religious concentration to state religion, rather than the reverse. Theoretically, state religion is more probable when the population adheres to a monotheistic religion, but we find this relation primarily for Muslim adherence. State religion is less likely in sub-Saharan Africa, possibly because of the intense competition for converts in this region among the major world religion. Variables that have little effect on the probability of state religion include per capita GDP, country size, colonial and legal origins, and the extent of democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law.

We also are studying how religious beliefs and practices influence productivity, economic growth, and the maintenance of political institutions such as democracy ("Religion and Economic Growth across Countries"). We use international survey data on religiosity for a broad panel of countries to investigate the effects of church attendance and religious beliefs on economic growth. We find that, for a given level of church attendance (also measured in the surveys), increases in core religious beliefs - notably in hell, heaven, and an after-life - tend to increase economic growth. Our interpretation, reminiscent of Max Weber's famous thesis in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, is that religious beliefs raise productivity by fostering individual traits such as honesty, work ethic, and thift. In contrast, for given religious beliefs, increases in church attendance tend to reduce economic growth. We think that this negative effect reflects the time and resources used by the religion sector as well as adverse effects from organized religion on economic regulation - for example, restrictions on markets for credit and insurance. To put it another way, the main growth effect that we find is a positive response to an increase in believing relative to belonging (attending). Striking patterns of relatively high belief appear in the Scandinavian countries, Britain, and Japan. Although these countries are not generally viewed as religious, the belief levels are high when compared to the low levels of attendance at formal religious services. We also have some evidence that the stick represented by the fear of damnation is more potent for growth than the carrot from the prospect of salvation ("Salvation, Damnation, and Economic Incentives").

We also examine how economic growth affects religiosity ("Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel"). When we look at the effects of economic development on religion, we find that overall development - represented by per capita GDP - tends to reduce religiosity.  Moreover, we argue from econometric analysis that this link reflects causation from economic development to religiosity, rather than the reverse. Although religiosity declines overall with economic development, the nature of the interaction varies with the dimension of development. For example, increased education has very different effects from rises in life expectancy or urbanization.

III. A Market Approach to the Rise of the Dge lugs School in Tibet

My research investigates how religion interacts with economic performance and the political and social behavior of individuals and institutions across societies.

An analysis of the rise of Tibetan Buddhism and particularly of the Dge lugs sect from the perspective of political economy is a desideratum in the field of Tibetan Studies. Very little research has been conducted on Tibetan Buddhism from a political economy perspective. I am conducting research with Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp Professor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, Chair, Sanskrit and Indian Studies/ Inner Asian & Altaic Studies. We are seeking to begin to fill this niche with our research. In this paper, we discuss the rise of the Dge lugs school into a state religion and how religion sanctions violence as a means of sef-determination.

The Dge lugs school was late in arriving on the religion scene in Tibet yet it rose to become the state religion in 1642. Using an economics of religion approach, our argument proceeds in four steps: (1) the homogeneity of the Buddhism market in Tibet in the 11-12 centuries; (2) the early Ming Dynasty's non-intervention policy in Tibet and the Imperial Court's tolerance of a variety of religions (Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism); (3) the rise of the Dge lugs sect during this liberalizing period with the patronage of the hegemonic clan of central Tibet; (4) the Dge lugs sect functioning as a club by  requiring strictness in the form of celibacy, a monolithic orthodoxy, religious scholarship, and the practice of abbot monks only. This practice excluded hereditary succession politics from the school's leadership creating a corporate monastic system. As a result, the Dge lugs school was able to maintain its institutional independence from kinship politics and, with the support of (foreign) Mongol patrons, became the state religion.

IV. The Political Economy of Guatemala's Dance Industry from the Spanish Conquest to Present

The purpose of this project is to conduct a comprehensive and systematic study of Guatemala's dances, theworkshops (morerias) that produce the costumes, and the mask makers. The primary focus of this research is to study the political economy of the Guatemalan dance industry from the Spanish Conquest (1524) up to contemporary times. Using an economics of religion approach, we examine the role organized religions and politics played in the development of the dance industry. Certainly, many of the dances were Mayan in origin and we will note this in our study. Due to the syncretization of indigenous Maya religion with Roman Catholicism during the colonial period, many of the Mayan dances were transformed to conform to Roman Catholic beliefs. Other dances, based on morality plays introduced by clerics and known as drama-dances, originated after the Spanish conquest.

The plan of the research is to: (1) construct an historical analysis based on documents dating from the colonial period of morerias and mask makers in Guatemala. (2) Building on ethnographic research conducted on the dances over the course of the twentieth century, we will locate existing morerias, interview their owners and those who work in the morerias; (3) identify and interview mask makers who supply the unfinished, carved masks to the morerias; and (3) interview the autores of the dances. The autores or maestros of the dances are those individuals who initiate the performance of a dance by calling together individuals who will make up the dance troups. The autores know the dances and know of scripts or parlamentos of the drama-dances.

This research project is being carried out in cooperation with the Universidad Francisco Marroquin (UFM) and the Popol Vuh Museum, which is housed at that university. The UFM will serve as the institutional coordinating center for the project in Guatemala. The research team consists of five members, four of which are Guatemalan.

By studying the supply and demand of costumes and masks, we can ascertain several aspects of the dance industry in Guatemala. The supply-side of the dance industry in Guatemala, namely the morerias and the mask makers, provides an overview of dance activity over time. From the morerias we can learn the pricing and price discrimination of goods, the supply of materials (national and international) and the marginal cost of making of costumes and masks, the nature of the dance market (monopoly, oligopoly, open market). The nature of the market will determine quantities of goods produced, price discrimination, revenue, and profits.

By studying the demand for costumes and masks, we can ascertain the number of extant dance troupes at any given time within a geographic region, the socio-economic status of the dancers, the geographic locations of the communities in which the dances are performed, the frequency of the performances, and the diversity of dances performed. The geographic dispersion of the dancers will show us the individual markets throughout Guatemala on which each moreria depends for business. By locating dance troupes by geographic region, we can determine the market demand (all the individual markets) for costumes and masks. We will be able to see how the total quantity demanded of dance goods varies as the price of theses goods vary. Demand correlates with income. When income falls, the demand for quality dance goods fall and people may only be willing to rent cheaper costumes and masks (inferior good). This will influence the quality of materials out of which costumes and masks are made. For example, cheaper corduroy instead of velvet cloth for costumes and pine instead of mahogany for masks.

By studying the supply and demand of the dance industry, we can determine on which religious holidays dances are performed and how involved a community is in the religious festival (by the number of dance troupes and dances performed annually). Politically, we can find out if the local government supports the dances or discourages them. We can also find out how state-led promotion of national and international tourism (through the Guatemalan National Tourism Institute-INGUAT) has impacted the performance of dances. And, we can identify nonprofit cultural groups that promote and preserve the dance industry in Guatemala. Historically, several international and national political crises and trends influenced the dance industry in Guatemala: the Spanish Conquest, the Totonicapan revolt and the Constitution of 1824, the liberal regimes of the 1820 and 1830s, the Liberal Reform (1871) and its anti-Roman Catholicism, the World Wars, particularly World War II, the violence of the civil war in the highlands (particularly in the early 1980s), and the rise of pan-Maya cultural activism in the late 1980s and early 1990s.