While Utah recently lost its twice-a-year Outdoor Retailer convention, and the taxable revenue that came with it, there’s another biannual conference in Salt Lake City that may have an even greater impact on the state’s economy — the Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns this paper.

Although general conference — with its sermon-laden sessions — focuses far more on the stability of the soul than the stability of the economy, still, some commentators say the two are not entirely disentangled.

For example, in last week’s profile of Utah’s economic successes, Bloomberg columnist Megan McArdle notes the economic effects of a strong marriage culture and widespread abstinence from alcohol.

“The Mormon Church forbids drinking,” she writes, “and alcohol sales are far lower here than in other states. The incidence of problems associated with alcohol l ike poverty, unemployment and crime i s also lower than in most other states. On the other hand, the Mormon Church strongly encourages marriage, and the state is No. 1 in both married adults and in the percentage of children being raised by married parents.”

Strong marriage and family life has been emphasized throughout Saturday’s sessions of the LDS Church’s general conference.

McArdle invokes economists Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline and Emmanuel Saez, who identify Salt Lake City and its environs as having the highest “rates of absolute upward mobility in the nation.” Chetty says marriages and familial stability are leading reasons for the state’s unique success in promoting upward mobility.

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“By encouraging members to marry,” McArdle writes, “the Mormon Church is encouraging them to reduce their own likelihood of ending up poor. But it may also be creating spillover effects even for non-Mormons, because Chetty et al didn’t just find that married parents helped their own children to rise; they also influenced the lives of the children around them.”

Writing for the Boston Globe, journalist Michael Paulson once said that the LDS Church’s general conference is “like nothing I’ve ever seen.” He characterized it as “about 20,000 people … sitting quietly in their Sunday best listening to a string of earnest motivational talks from church leaders.”

Joseph Price, an economist at Brigham Young University who studies marriage and family and is quoted in the Bloomberg piece, says these teachings or “movivational talks” help create “scripts” for living one’s life. Yet, according to McArdle, “You don’t need religious faith for those ... you just need cultural agreement that they’re important.”

For believers, general conference is about preaching the word of God. For secular observers, however, it may increasingly be viewed as a vehicle for transmitting principles that stabilize economies and help revive the American dream.

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