Evaluating the Long-Term Development Impact of Christian Missions

Valeria Rueda

Chapter 3 in The Economics of Religion, 2023, pp 97-110 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: Since the late 2000s, Christian missions have been extensively researched in the fields of long-run comparative economic history. This chapter surveys the main findings of this literature. On the one hand, missionary work went beyond evangelization, as in many cases, missions engaged in activities that today we would consider to be of the realm of international development work, such as education and healthcare. Missionary investments in these sectors have been consistently associated with long-run development benefits, especially in terms of human capital accumulation. On the other hand, research on the cultural transformation sparked by missions has brought more nuanced conclusions, pointing for instance towards increased discriminating behaviors towards non-Christians or towards those not conforming to Christian norms.

Keywords: Economics; Religion; Economics of Religion; Max Weber; Adam Smith (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 A13 D9 E7 Z1 Z12 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789811273148_0003 (application/pdf)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789811273148_0003 (text/html)
Ebook Access is available upon purchase.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:wschap:9789811273148_0003

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in World Scientific Book Chapters from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().