Devotion and Development: Religiosity, Education, and Economic Progress in Nineteenth-Century France

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Squicciarini, Mara P.
• 署名单位: Bocconi University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20191054
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 3454-3491
• 关键词: institutions; culture; industrialization; fertility; origins; WORLD; state

摘要

This paper studies when religion can hamper diffusion of knowledge and economic development, and through which mechanism. I examine Catholicism in France during the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914). In this period, technology became skill-intensive, leading to the introduction of technical education in primary schools. I find that more religious locations had lower economic development after 1870. Schooling appears to be the key mechanism: more religious areas saw a slower adoption of the technical curriculum and a push for religious education. In turn, religious education was negatively associated with industrial development 10 to 15 years later, when schoolchildren entered the labor market.