Bizarro, dubious factoid of the day via Reuters:
Economists searching for reasons why some nations are richer than others have found that those with a wide belief in hell are less corrupt and more prosperous, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Update: BoingBoing reader jeffk says, “This is the actual article referenced by the Yahoo “Hell & Economics” And, well…. Jesus Fucking Christ are their statistics fucked up! This is yet another example of conclusions not being supported by the facts of their own frippin’ study!”
Update 2: BoingBoing reader Morgan Foust says the report conclusions aren’t supported by the data, and the Reuters story appears to add up to sloppy journalism. “What is the correlation between ‘fear of hell’ and productivity?,” asks Morgan, “According to this simple chart — which took all of five minutes to generate in Microsoft Excel — the correlation is negative. In other words, by the Fed’s own data, the more a country believes in Hell, the lower their productivity. (For those paying attention, the correlation is a weak -.21.)”
Link
Update umptybillion: BoingBoing reader Chris says, “Morgan Foust’s feedback is off target. Productivity is a measure of outputs divided by inputs. GDP and per capita income are not measures of productivity. I’m not arguing the merits of the Fed’s report, but Foust’s feedback appears to be based on a flawed understanding of what is (and isn’t) ‘productivity’.”