Dr. Laurence Iannaccone
Professor, Director, Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics and Society
The George L. Argyros College of Business and Economics
- Education:
- Stanford University, Bachelor of Science
University of Chicago, Master of Arts
University of Chicago, Master of Science
University of Chicago, Ph.D.
Biography
Laurence R. Iannaccone is a Professor of Economics at Chapman University. Prior to joining Chapman’s faculty in 2009, he was the Koch Professor of Economics at George Mason University. Before that he was a Professor of Economics at Santa Clara University and spent two years at Stanford’s Hoover Institution as a National Fellow (1989/90) and Visiting Scholar (1996/97). Iannaccone earned his MS in Mathematics and PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago, and wrote his doctoral thesis on habit formation and religious behavior in 1984. His thesis committee included Nobel Laureates Gary S. Becker and George J. Stigler. In more than fifty publications, Iannaccone has applied economic insights to study denominational growth, church attendance, religious giving, conversion, extremism, international trends, and many other aspects of religion and spirituality. His articles have appeared in numerous academic journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the American Journal of Sociology, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. He is currently writing two books on the on the economics of religion
Recent Creative, Scholarly Work and Publications
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Hajikhameneh, Aidin and Iannaccone, Laurence R. "God games: An experimental study of uncertainty, superstition, and cooperation". Games and Economic Behavior, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2023.01.004
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Iannaccone, Laurence R. "When You Pray to God Online, Who Else Is Listening?" Freakonomics Radio podcast, July 14, 2022. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/when-you-pray-to-god-online-who-else-is-listening/
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Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Smart and Spiritual: The Coevolution of Religion and Rationality,” in Religion and Human Flourishing. Edited by Adam B. Cohen, Baylor University Press, 2020.
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Berman, Eli, Iannaccone, Laurence R., & Ragusa, Giuseppe. (2018). "FROM EMPTY PEWS TO EMPTY CRADLES: FERTILITY DECLINE AMONG EUROPEAN CATHOLICS." Journal of Demographic Economics, 84(2), 149-187. doi:10.1017/dem.2017.22
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Franck, Raphael, and Laurence R. Iannaccone. “Religious Decline in the 20th century West: Testing Alternative Explanations." Public Choice 2014: 159:385–414.
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Freakonomics Podcast Interview: “Does Religion Make you Happy?” [July 2014, 1 hour interview]
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Podcast Interview on “Sacrifice, Stigma, and the Economics of Religion.” [August 2014, http://www.researchonreligion.org/, 1 hour.]
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Jason Aimone, Laurence R. Iannaccone, Michael Makowsky, and Jared Rubin. “Endogenous Group Formation via Unproductive Costs." Review of Economic Studies: Oct 2013; 80(4): 1215–1236. (published online, June 2013).
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Jason Aimone, Laurence R. Iannaccone, Michael Makowsky, and Jared Rubin. “Cooperation through Unproductive Costs” OUPblog of Oxford University Press, July 11, 2013.
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"Extremism and the Economics of Religion." The Economic Record (Journal of the Economic Society of Australia) 88 (June, 2012), pp. 110–115.
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“Funding the Faiths: Toward a Theory of Religious Finance” (with Feler Bose). The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Religion, edited by Rachel McCleary. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 2011, pp. 323-342.
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“Lessons from Delphi: Religious Markets and Spiritual Capitals” (with Colleen E. Haight and Jared Rubin). Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 77:3 (March, 2011), pp. 326-338.
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“Economics of Religion.” (with William S. Bainbridge). The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, Second Edition, edited by John Hinnells. Routledge: 2010, pp. 461-475.
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“The Economics of Religion: Invest Now, Repent Later?” Faith and Economics 55 (Spring 2010): pp. 1-10.
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“Economics of Religion.” (with Eli Berman). Chapter in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, edited by Stephen Durlauf and Lawrence Blume. 2008