Financial economics

April 30, 2015

Why is the Episcopal Church Working as a Debt Collector?

For decades The Episcopal Church (ECUSA) has faced declining membership (in 1966, the ECUSA had 3,647,297 members; by 2013, the membership was 1,866,758, a decline of 49 percent.) But even when people are leaving the pews someone still has to pay for those pews, as well as the other overhead costs that come with running a large organization. Continue Reading...

February 25, 2015

How Churches Can Protect the Poor Against Predatory Lending

Near the top of the list of things I despise is companies that take advantage of the plight of the poor and desperate. But just above that on my list is something I hate even more: being poor and desperate. Continue Reading...

December 08, 2014

Did the Catholic Church Change Its Doctrine on Usury?

Usury is the practice of making immoral monetary loans intended to unfairly enrich the lender. But what, for Christians, counts as an immoral loan? For much of church history, any interest was considered immoral. Continue Reading...

June 06, 2014

Thinking Biblically About Bankruptcy

The Bible has a lot to say about the principles behind bankruptcy law, says T. Kyle Bryant. In the Old Testament, God gave Moses various laws concerning the poor, lenders, borrowers, and debt forgiveness. Continue Reading...

October 18, 2013

The Moral Complexity of Inflation and Default

As the US federal government sidled up to the debt ceiling earlier this week without quite running into it, one of the key arguments in favor of raising the debt ceiling was that it is immoral to breach a contract. Continue Reading...

September 04, 2013

Shareholder Activists: ‘We’re No Angels’ Edition

Shareholder activism, according to the headline in the most recent issue of PRWeek, is “rising” and “big companies [are] in crosshairs.” The ensuing article by Brittaney Kiefer, begins: Shareholder activism used to be just a nuisance that arose during proxy season, involving a group of contentious investors who tended to target smaller or less established companies. Continue Reading...

September 27, 2012

Is Student Loan Debt an Avoidable Crisis?

At the height of the housing crisis, it was estimated that 11 million homes in America were mortgaged for more than they were worth. That debt crisis may soon be dwarfed—if it hasn’t been already—by the student loan debt problem: With college enrollment growing, student debt has stretched to a record number of U.S. Continue Reading...

March 05, 2012

The Economics of Contraception

One of the justifications for the HHS mandates (amended now to require insurance companies to provide contraceptives free of charge) has been purely economic. The idea is that the use of contraceptives saves insurance companies (and by extension the rest of us) money, as it is less expensive to pay for condoms or birth control pills than to pay for a pregnancy and birth. Continue Reading...