Educational disparities are prominent in religious societies. Those same societies soak up funding to support the religions. The result is a perfect storm in tamping down innovation and enterprise.

I agree...no religion means more economic growth. Churches seem to soak up lots of wealth from the people and don't contribute anything towards growing the economy.

More sane that way

Maybe the pertinent questions are: “If I stop going to church will I get more money?” and “If I take up religion will I become poorer?”

It would depend on the individual. Many business people are active in churches and other social groups in order to gain business contacts. They are a minority however. Perhaps they are more than offset by those who, having suffered some debilitating life crisis, turn to religion for solace and support. Many college students turn away from religion, as I did, at a time when they have absolutely no money. They can only become wealthier, but in that case turning away from religion is not the cause of their becoming more wealthy.

I think that those who are deeply religious in a personal way, in general do not aspire to great wealth, but are satisfied with just having enough.

Analysis aside, this article will serve to bolster the egos of many, feeding the concept of atheists as an elite group that is wealthier, more intelligent and morally superior to the others.

From the article:

“This doesn't necessarily mean that secularisation caused economic development, since both changes could have been caused by some third factor with different time lags, but at least we can rule out economic growth as the cause of secularization in the past."

It’s a good balanced article. It is noted that the decline of religion often precedes economic growth. Maybe sometimes declines in the economy precede religious growth.

Regardless, populations are not monoliths. I think that to get at the root of the issue you’d have to study which sorts of people are growing or shrinking in wealth and religion.

Common sense. Deeply ("fanatically" ) religious states discourage education of the masses in general and of women in particular.
A poorly educated society is not innovative, and therefore is less affluent, unless factors such as mineral wealth compensate.

I suspect that there may be a little extra complexity, in that some religions may be more damaging to economic progress than others, and of course the two may go hand in hand in a feedback loop as well, the study does not preclude that.

Quoting the article ( a little further down the page)

"However, we suspect that the relationship is not purely causal. We noticed that secularization only leads to economic development when it is accompanied by a greater respect for individual rights."

Duh? [guardianlv.com]