Club Mormon

Abstract

The Mormon Church is best understood as a club, in the economics sense of the term. It succeeds, in part, because it identifies and selectively rewards high contributors, thereby limiting free-riding and producing large religious benefits for its members. First, it offers a menu of club goods of varying excludability, with the most valued goods excluded from less-committed members. Second, to enforce this menu, it actively monitors its members using a sophisticated administrative structure. The menu design reflects to an extent the costs of excludability of various religious goods, and the menu-monitoring approach implicitly allows some free-riding to dynamically foster commitment. Because the menu-monitoring approach is best understood as complementing other methods in achieving the Mormon Church's religious goals, these findings yield insights into the activities of other religious groups.