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"The Catholic Church has been making saints for centuries, typically in a two-stage process featuring beatification and canonization. We analyze determinants of rates of beatification and canonization (for non-martyrs) over time and across six world regions. The research uses a recently assembled data set on numbers and characteristics of beatifieds and saints chosen since 1590. We classify these blessed persons regionally in accordance with residence at death. These data are combined with time-series estimates of regional populations of Catholics, broadly-defined Protestants, Orthodox, and Evangelicals (mostly a sub-set of Protestants). Regression estimates indicate that the canonization rate depends strongly on the number of candidates, gauged by a region's stock of beatifieds who have not yet been canonized. The beatification rate depends positively on the region's stock of persons previously canonized. The last two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI (the only non-Italians in our sample), are outliers, choosing blessed persons at a much higher rate than that of their predecessors. Since around 1900, the naming of blessed persons seems to reflect a response by the Catholic Church to competition from Protestantism or Evangelicalism. We find no evidence, at least since 1590, of competition between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

"Questions about current and prior religion adherence from the International Social Survey Program and the World Values Survey allow us to calculate country-level religious-conversion rates for 40 countries. These conversion rates apply to religion adherence classified into eight major types. In a theoretical model based on rational individual choice, the frequency of religious conversion depends on factors that influence the cost of switching and the cost of having the "wrong" religion. Empirical findings for a panel of countries accord with several hypotheses: religious-conversion rates are positively related to religious pluralism, gauged by adherence shares; negatively related to government restrictions on religious conversion; positively related to levels of education; and negatively related to a history of Communism. Conversion rates are not much related to per capita GDP, the presence of state religion, and the extent of religiosity. Effects from the type of religion adherence are minor, except for a negative effect from Muslim adherence. The empirical results are robust to alternative specifications of the religion groupings used to construct the conversion rates"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

"A representative-consumer model with Epstein-Zin-Weil preferences and i.i.d. shocks, including rare disasters, accords with key asset-pricing observations. If the coefficient of relative risk aversion equals 3-4, the model accords with observed equity premia and risk-free real interest rates. If the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is greater than one, an increase in uncertainty lowers the price-dividend ratio for equity, whereas a rise in the expected growth rate raises this ratio. In a model with endogenous saving, more uncertainty lowers the saving ratio (because substitution effects dominate). The match with major features of asset pricing suggests that the model is a reasonable candidate for assessing the welfare cost of aggregate consumption uncertainty. In the baseline simulation, the welfare cost of disaster risk is large -- society would be willing to lower real GDP by as much as 20% each year to eliminate the small chance of major economic collapses. The welfare cost from usual economic fluctuations is much smaller, though still important, corresponding to lowering GDP by around 1.5% each year"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site