Calendrier du 19 juin 2019
Development Economics Seminar
Du 19/06/2019 de 16:30 à 18:00
Salle R2.01, Campus Jourdan - 48 boulevard Jourdan, Paris 14ème
MEAGER Rachael (London School of Economics)
Aggregating Distributional Treatment Effects: A Bayesian Hierarchical Analysis of the Microcredit Literature
Studies of microcredit show positive and negative treatment effects at certain quantiles of household outcome distributions. I develop new Bayesian hierarchical models to aggregate the evidence on these effects and assess their generalizability. I provide a broadly-applicable limited-information model enforcing quantile monotonicity via variable transformation. Partially discrete outcomes such as profit are aggregated using full-data mixture models. Across all outcomes I find a precise, generalizable zero effect from the 5th to 75th quantiles, and large yet heterogeneous and uncertain effects on the right tails.Households who had previously operated businesses account for the majority
of the impact and the uncertainty.
Economic History Seminar
Du 19/06/2019 de 12:30 à 14:00
Salle R1.15 Campus Jourdan 48 Boulevard Jourdan 75014 Paris
MORADI Alexander (University of Sussex)
The Economics of Missionary Expansion: Evidence from Africa and Implications for Development
écrit avec Remi Jedwab and Felix Meier zu Selhausen
How did Christianity expand in sub-Saharan Africa to become the continent’s
dominant religion? Using annual panel data on all Christian missions from 1751
to 1932 in Ghana, as well as cross-sectional data on missions for 43 sub-Saharan
African countries in 1900 and 1924, we shed light on the spatial dynamics and
determinants of this religious diffusion process. Missions expanded into healthier,
safer, more accessible, and more developed areas, privileging these locations first.
Results are confirmed for selected factors using various identification strategies.
This pattern has implications for extensive literature using missions established
during colonial times as a source of variation to study the long-term economic
effects of religion, human capital and culture. Our results provide a less favorable
account of the impact of Christian missions on modern African economic development.
We also highlight the risks of omission and endogenous measurement error
biases when using historical data and events for identification.