Religion, Corruption, and the Rule of Law
基于207个国家的样本，研究发现法治和腐败与国家的宗教传统有关，这部分解释了宗教与经济增长的关联。同时指出，控制变量的加入会因样本构成变化而影响结果，提醒跨国研究者注意区分控制变量效应与样本构成效应。
In a 207‐country sample, we find that rule of law and corruption are both associated with a country's religious heritage, thereby partially explaining the correlation between religion and economic growth found in previous research. We also show that our results change when we control for some variables lacking data for all countries in the sample but that these differences are attributable to changes in sample composition rather than the effects of the control variables. Our research suggests that researchers doing cross‐country analysis should distinguish between the effects of adding a control variable and the resulting sample composition effects.