Tertiary education and prosperity: Catholic missionaries to luminosity in India
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Authors
Castello-Climent, Amparo
Chaudhary, Latika
Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop
Subjects
Human capital
Catholic missionaries
Subregional analysis
Catholic missionaries
Subregional analysis
Advisors
Date of Issue
2015-10
Date
Publisher
Bonn, Germany; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Language
Abstract
This paper estimates the causal impact of tertiary education on luminosity across Indian districts. We address the potential endogeneity of tertiary education using the location of Catholic missionaries in 1911 as an instrument for current tertiary education. We find Catholic missionaries have a large and positive impact on tertiary education. Catholics were not at the forefront of tertiary education in colonial India, but they established many high quality colleges following Indian independence. Controlling for a rich set of geographical and historical characteristics, we find a positive causal effect of tertiary education on development, as measured by light density at night. The findings are robust to different measures of development, and are not driven by alternative channels through which missionaries could impact current income.
Type
Article
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Graduate School of Operational and Information Sciences
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
We acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through ECO2011-29283 project, and the Planning and Policy Research Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute (Delhi)
Funder
Format
50 p.
Citation
IZA Discussion Paper No. 9441, October 2015
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.