The economics of missionary expansion: evidence from Africa and implications for development

Jedwab, Rémi; Selhausen, Felix Meier zu; Moradi, Alexander

doi:10.1007/s10887-022-09202-8

Cited by 31 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 89 publications

(142 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In an article that criticizes much of the evidence for the supposed long-term effects of missionary activity, Remi Jedwab, Felix Meier zu Selhausen, and Alexander Moradi have listed over 50 published papers since 2010. 71 One of the points that this vast literature in historical economics agrees on is that Protestant missions were more inclined to promote literacy and gender equality than Catholic or Islamic missions. More contested, however, are interpretations of the origins and long-term effects of missionary movements.…”

Section: Inequality and Social Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa

Frankema

Waijenburg

2023

J. Afr. Hist.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This review article seeks to build bridges between mainstream African history and the more historically oriented branch of the ‘new’ economic history of Africa. We survey four central topics of the new economic history of Africa — growth, trade, labor, and inequality — and argue that the increased use of quantitative methods and comparative perspectives have sharpened views on long-term trajectories of economic development within Africa and placed the region more firmly into debates of global economic development. The revival of African economic history opens new opportunities for Africanist historians to enrich the interdisciplinary approaches they have taken to study questions of demography, poverty, slavery, labor, inequality, migration, state formation, and colonialism. These fruits, however, can only be reaped if the institutional boundaries between the fields of history and economic history are softened and both sides engage in greater mutual engagement. Our paper aims to move closer to a shared vision on the benefits and limitations of varying quantitative methods, and how these approaches underpin both more and less convincing narratives of long-term African development.

show abstract

Section: Inequality and Social Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa

Frankema

Waijenburg

2023

J. Afr. Hist.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…An obvious limitation to identifying the effect of missionaries on long-run development and state capacity is that missionary settlement is non-random (Jedwab et al, 2018). I therefore control for potential confounders to missionary settlement.…”

Section: Control Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Search for Spices and Souls: Catholic Missions as Colonial State in the Philippines

Dulay

2022

Comparative Political Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A growing literature posits that colonial Christian missions brought schooling to the colonies, improving human capital in ways that persist to this day. But in some places, they did much more. This paper argues that colonial Catholic missions in the Philippines functioned as state-builders, establishing law and order and building fiscal and infrastructural capacities in territories they controlled. The mission-as-state was the result of a bargain between the Catholic missions and the Spanish colonial government: missionaries converted the population and engaged in state-building, whereas the colonial government reaped the benefits of state expansion while staying in the capital. Exposure to these Catholic missions-as-state then led to long-run improvements in state capacity and development. I find that municipalities that had a Catholic mission have higher levels of state capacity and development today. A variety of mechanisms—religious competition, education, urbanization, and structural transformation—explain these results.

show abstract

“…We do not discuss the rich literature on the long-term consequences of missionary education (e.g. Bauer et al 2022;Caicedo 2019;Cogneau and Moradi 2014;Jedwab et al 2022;Waldinger 2017;Wantchekon et al 2014;Wietzke 2015).…”

Section: The French Protectoratementioning

confidence: 99%

The Colonial Legacy of Education: Evidence from of Tunisia

Ben Salah,

Chambru,

Fourati

2022

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The economics of missionary expansion: evidence from Africa and implications for development

Cited by 31 publications

References 89 publications

Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa

Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa

The Search for Spices and Souls: Catholic Missions as Colonial State in the Philippines

The Colonial Legacy of Education: Evidence from of Tunisia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About