Religions vs. Firms

I'm not sure if anyone had a chance to attend the Mountain Plains Management Conference, but i had the opportunity to go for another class. I attended a paper presentation that discussed how the Solow growth could be used to explain the growth of religions. The Solow growth model explains the growth of capital through accumulation. Religion uses proselytizers to accumulate members or capital. The less you put into production, or the less people you have trying to recruit others to your faith, the higher the burnout rate. Through this example, you can see that it is similar to firms that go out of business because they don't put evough focus on the rate of saving, depreciation, and population growth. This is just a very simiple overview of the paper, but it was interesting to see how an economic principle ties into the everyday aspects of our life. There was discussion after the presentation and someone mentioned how our military even works on a recruiting basis. Like i said, it was just interesting to be given such a good example of how economics really plays a part in our lives, and nobody really recognizes it.