Interest Groups, Public Choice and the Economics of Religion

This article reviews Bob Tollison's conjoint contributions to the burgeoning area of the economics of religion, underscoring his integration of public choice and interestgroup themes into the microeconomic analysis of faith-based organizational architecture, institutional decision making and doctrinal innovation. Beginning with study of the medieval Catholic Church, moving forward to the Protestant Reformation and beyond, it supplies a timeline of developments and the major findings of each phase of his research program.