I also wonder if there's a chicken-and-egg thing. I know prices have shot up in Montpelier, Idaho, for instance, but rich Utahns have run out of room on the south side of Bear Lake so maybe they were going to start buying in Idaho anyway. And maybe that's part of the reason a temple was put there? After all, there's one very close in Logan and one even closer in Wyoming. People in Montpelier were perplexed when the announcement was made.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the decision rooms for some of the temples. My report will be focused on what happens to home prices when a temple is announced/built, but there will be a smaller section on which locations are most likely to be chosen.
Fascinating! Is this US, North America limited or not? We as a people are very gifted at creating new folklore from the Three Nephite encounters to temple real estate premiums!
Hi Dallin -- thanks for sharing your paper. I actually found it as I was doing some background research for this report. It might be fun to connect at some point. It seems like you are working on some interesting stuff!
That’s awesome! And yeah I’d love to connect. Causal inference stats is my jam.
I had thought about doing a paper using a synthetic control model that captures the impact of a temple being built on a zip code or county, but I never have gotten around to it. Sounds like you’ve got something similar cooking, so I’m excited to see what you find!
Interesting paper Dallin! Conversly, I understand Utah tends to rank very highly on economic mobility. (SLC ranked 5th in this paper from Standord linked below, but I have seen this in other places as well.) If we make the dangerous short hand of equating Utah statistics with LDS membership, how would you compare and contrast your data with broad economic mobility of areas with high LDS membership?
Thanks for the thoughtful question! You’re right that Utah’s high economic mobility is interesting, but it’s actually measuring something different from what my paper looks at.
Economic mobility looks at whether people move up the income ladder over time. My paper tests poverty rates (a snapshot measure of how many people are below the poverty line). These can easily operate independently. A place can have high mobility (people moving up) while still having persistent poverty.
The DiD models I use try to control for the factors you’re thinking about (work ethic, thrift, social capital). I include state-level Mormon membership, demographic controls, and county fixed effects specifically to isolate the effect of tithing (proxied by temple construction) rather than just general Mormon cultural traits.
President Nelson claimed that tithing itself “breaks the bands of poverty” and ends “cycles of poverty, generation after generation.” That’s a claim about poverty reduction, not mobility. My paper tests whether counties that gain temples (indicating high tithing participation) see poverty rates decline. I didn’t find evidence for that.
All that said, it is interesting that Utah sees high economic mobility. I think that’s worth exploring further. But that doesn’t mean tithing or temples are what’s driving it. Could be strong community institutions, could be low inequality, could be other cultural factors.
The other thing--if it breaks the bands of poverty--how much as to do with industrialization, urbanization, and the wealth-transfer hypothesis as background noise?
I liked your paper--null is better than p-hacking for one result or another. I wonder if those results come from the surveys of members or the long term statistics based on records they have--a richer dataset than public records would have. Its unfortunate that its private data because we could have a richer discussion about this kind of work. As a geospatial analyst, I would point out that using temples only is not the best use of location data. It is only one data point. Distribution centers, canneries, Deseret Industries, Welfare Self-Reliance offices would be more concrete and harder to find datasets that are related to that figure.
Appreciate you taking the time to read it! Admittedly, this paper was my first venture applying the tools from my PhD in public policy and administration onto religious policy and administration, so yeah, it’s not perfect.
The data limitations for sure are an issue studying the Church when trying to analyze their programs and policies. So I had to get creative with how to measure things.
A follow up paper to this one that I currently have under review tries to tap into all the extensive data available in General Conference talks, turning text data in quantitative data we can track over time. Here’s a link if you’re interested: https://dloverstreet.github.io/papers/Overstreet_2025_Mormon_Tithing.pdf
I’d love to collaborate on any ideas you might have though!
Great read. The observation that the LDS Church’s financial practices fail to address poverty in a meaningful way is not a surprise and echoes decades of suspicion. With temples, my question is how much do they bolster the Church’s corporate revenue?
Appreciate it! I agree, not super shocking findings from an academic standpoint, but very fun to dig into the data. Null findings are always weird to publish!
I am also very interested in that relationship between tithing revenue and temple presence. I think it definitely flows both ways, with a base level of tithing participation being necessary to build a temple, but a temple also likely increases tithing revenue. But it’s difficult to know because the Church is a closed book when it comes to its financials.
A slightly different route I’m taking in my research with that limitation is just looking at how Church leaders talk about tithing, how the rhetoric/framings/motivations given in General Conference talks has shifted over time. A Working Paper I have currently under review potentially finds evidence of rhetoric evolving over time based on cultural/societal trends, but punctuated by internal/external events like financial crises within the church or recessions in the US.
Ooh, this is going to be interesting!
.
I also wonder if there's a chicken-and-egg thing. I know prices have shot up in Montpelier, Idaho, for instance, but rich Utahns have run out of room on the south side of Bear Lake so maybe they were going to start buying in Idaho anyway. And maybe that's part of the reason a temple was put there? After all, there's one very close in Logan and one even closer in Wyoming. People in Montpelier were perplexed when the announcement was made.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the decision rooms for some of the temples. My report will be focused on what happens to home prices when a temple is announced/built, but there will be a smaller section on which locations are most likely to be chosen.
Fascinating! Is this US, North America limited or not? We as a people are very gifted at creating new folklore from the Three Nephite encounters to temple real estate premiums!
This is US limited
I'm so excited to see the results!
I love this idea and thought about doing this myself. I published a paper on a similar idea, different focus but I assume you’ll find similar things:
https://j-etr.org/2024/04/03/the-elusive-economic-blessings-of-tithing-mormon-temples-and-county-poverty/
Excited to see what you find!
Hi Dallin -- thanks for sharing your paper. I actually found it as I was doing some background research for this report. It might be fun to connect at some point. It seems like you are working on some interesting stuff!
That’s awesome! And yeah I’d love to connect. Causal inference stats is my jam.
I had thought about doing a paper using a synthetic control model that captures the impact of a temple being built on a zip code or county, but I never have gotten around to it. Sounds like you’ve got something similar cooking, so I’m excited to see what you find!
Interesting paper Dallin! Conversly, I understand Utah tends to rank very highly on economic mobility. (SLC ranked 5th in this paper from Standord linked below, but I have seen this in other places as well.) If we make the dangerous short hand of equating Utah statistics with LDS membership, how would you compare and contrast your data with broad economic mobility of areas with high LDS membership?
https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/SOTU_2015_economic-mobility.pdf
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/why-low-income-kids-thrive-in-salt-lake-city/425214/
Thanks for the thoughtful question! You’re right that Utah’s high economic mobility is interesting, but it’s actually measuring something different from what my paper looks at.
Economic mobility looks at whether people move up the income ladder over time. My paper tests poverty rates (a snapshot measure of how many people are below the poverty line). These can easily operate independently. A place can have high mobility (people moving up) while still having persistent poverty.
The DiD models I use try to control for the factors you’re thinking about (work ethic, thrift, social capital). I include state-level Mormon membership, demographic controls, and county fixed effects specifically to isolate the effect of tithing (proxied by temple construction) rather than just general Mormon cultural traits.
President Nelson claimed that tithing itself “breaks the bands of poverty” and ends “cycles of poverty, generation after generation.” That’s a claim about poverty reduction, not mobility. My paper tests whether counties that gain temples (indicating high tithing participation) see poverty rates decline. I didn’t find evidence for that.
All that said, it is interesting that Utah sees high economic mobility. I think that’s worth exploring further. But that doesn’t mean tithing or temples are what’s driving it. Could be strong community institutions, could be low inequality, could be other cultural factors.
The other thing--if it breaks the bands of poverty--how much as to do with industrialization, urbanization, and the wealth-transfer hypothesis as background noise?
I'd really like to talk with you haha!
I liked your paper--null is better than p-hacking for one result or another. I wonder if those results come from the surveys of members or the long term statistics based on records they have--a richer dataset than public records would have. Its unfortunate that its private data because we could have a richer discussion about this kind of work. As a geospatial analyst, I would point out that using temples only is not the best use of location data. It is only one data point. Distribution centers, canneries, Deseret Industries, Welfare Self-Reliance offices would be more concrete and harder to find datasets that are related to that figure.
Appreciate you taking the time to read it! Admittedly, this paper was my first venture applying the tools from my PhD in public policy and administration onto religious policy and administration, so yeah, it’s not perfect.
The data limitations for sure are an issue studying the Church when trying to analyze their programs and policies. So I had to get creative with how to measure things.
A follow up paper to this one that I currently have under review tries to tap into all the extensive data available in General Conference talks, turning text data in quantitative data we can track over time. Here’s a link if you’re interested: https://dloverstreet.github.io/papers/Overstreet_2025_Mormon_Tithing.pdf
I’d love to collaborate on any ideas you might have though!
Great read. The observation that the LDS Church’s financial practices fail to address poverty in a meaningful way is not a surprise and echoes decades of suspicion. With temples, my question is how much do they bolster the Church’s corporate revenue?
Appreciate it! I agree, not super shocking findings from an academic standpoint, but very fun to dig into the data. Null findings are always weird to publish!
I am also very interested in that relationship between tithing revenue and temple presence. I think it definitely flows both ways, with a base level of tithing participation being necessary to build a temple, but a temple also likely increases tithing revenue. But it’s difficult to know because the Church is a closed book when it comes to its financials.
A slightly different route I’m taking in my research with that limitation is just looking at how Church leaders talk about tithing, how the rhetoric/framings/motivations given in General Conference talks has shifted over time. A Working Paper I have currently under review potentially finds evidence of rhetoric evolving over time based on cultural/societal trends, but punctuated by internal/external events like financial crises within the church or recessions in the US.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one! Here’s the link: https://dloverstreet.github.io/papers/Overstreet_2025_Mormon_Tithing.pdf
The graphs are definitely the most interesting though in this paper!