These are all worth reading:
- Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm by Robert D. Tollison, R. Ekelund, R. Hebert, G. Anderson, and A. Davis 1996.
- The Marketplace of Christianity by Robert B. Ekelund Jr. & Robert F. Hebert & Robert D. Tollison, 2008 -discusses the reformation, counter-reformation and thereafter.
- Economic Origins of Roman Christianity by Robert B. Ekelund Jr. and Robert D. Tollison 2011 (the 1st 1000 years).
See as well The Pope and the Price of Meat: A Public Choice Perspective by Richard Ault, Robert Ekelund and Robert D. Tollison in Kyklos which shows how self-interest, economic geography, and an expanded number of third-world voters in the College of Cardinals explain why Pope Paul IV changed the relative price of meat and altered penance rules in 1966.
This paper applies public choice and modern regulatory theory to the twentieth century Roman Catholic Church and attempts to discover why the decision was made in 1966 to absolve Catholics from the requirement that meat not be eaten on most Fridays of the year.
We provide a cartel analysis of the institutional backdrop and power structure of the College of Cardinals within the Church. In this framework, self-interest, the geographic production of beef and fish, and the expanded number of voters in the College of Cardinals are the keys to understanding why Pope PAUL VI decided to change the relative price of meat and to alter penance rules in 1966.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Jul 23, 2014 @ 12:27:58
Have them all!!! To me “Scared Trust” is the most interesting as it looks at the medieval church as a firm. For a general introduction to the economics of religion, written by a journalist, see “Marketplace of the Gods: How Economics Explains Religion” by Larry Witman, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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Jul 23, 2014 @ 12:54:53
Paul, Sacred Trust is an example of the application of applied price theory to a firm that happened to be the medieval Christian church. I learnt immense amount about applied price theory just from reading the book.
Robert Tollison is a frustrating writer because every time I read an article of his, I get annoyed when it ends because he is such an interesting thinker and analyst. His article should keep going.
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