PREACHING MATTERS - REPLICATION AND EXTENSION

Statistical evidence in a recent excellent paper by Lipford, McCormick , and Tollison shows a negative relationship between church membership and social misbehavior. This paper replicates that relationship using more comprehensive data by U.S. county. We provide theoretical suppor t for the statistical evidence by showing that churches encourage appr opriate behavior (thus providing property rights enforcement) because doing so benefits churches and their members. As church membership inc reases, property rights enforcement increases, although at a diminishi ng rate.