Laurence R. Iannaccone is the Koch Professor of Economics at George Mason University. Prior to joining GMU’s faculty in 2002, he was 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.

Since coming to George Mason University, Iannaccone has established a yearly international conference on “Religion, Economics, and Culture,” an interdisciplinary “Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture” (ASREC), and a new “Consortium for the Economic Study of Religion” (CESR). Last month, the Templeton Foundation awarded Iannaccone a $500,000 grant to support these and other activities over the next three years.

For copies of Iannaccone’s papers or information about the economics of religion, see www.EconomicsOfReligion.com .