Abstract: This paper studies how individual missionaries, through translation of the Bible into vernacular African languages, catalyzed the entire missionary endeavor and shaped development outcomes in the long-run. Through codification of previously oral languages, translators made the language accessible to outsiders while enabling it to be used as a medium of instruction in mission schools. Exploiting the panel nature of newly constructed missionary and Bible translation data, I show that mission staff presence increases by 72\% following a Bible translation. As a result, there are large increases in the number of printing presses, primary schools, high schools, hospitals and dispensaries but only in countries where colonial policy is favorable to Protestant missionary activity. In such countries, this translates to, in the long run, 0.2 more years of schooling and a 0.1 points higher body mass index. Where colonial policy is adversarial to Protestant missions, educational attainment actually deteriorates as a result of Bible translation.

While recent scholarship on slave escapes has increasingly emphasised economic motivations, few studies have empirically investigated how market incentives influenced the decision-making of enslaved individuals during transitions from coerced to wage labour. This paper addresses that gap by exploring whether enslaved runaways at the British Cape Colony were driven by improving labour market opportunities as slavery gave way to emancipation. To answer this question, we construct a novel dataset of 689 runaway advertisements published between 1830 and 1838, drawn from two major colonial newspapers, and link these records to individual-level valuations compiled at the time of de jure emancipation in December 1834. Using both difference-in-differences and regression discontinuity in time analyses, we find that escapes increased markedly among higher-valued, more productive enslaved individuals immediately after de jure emancipation, rising by over 100 per cent relative to the pre-emancipation average. These escape attempts gradually declined, however, as de facto emancipation approached in 1838. Our results suggest that enslaved individuals responded rationally to shifts in labour market conditions, challenging the conventional view of escape as solely a reaction to harsh treatment. By quantifying the relationship between institutional change and labour coercion, this paper contributes directly to theoretical debates on how market incentives shape behaviour under conditions of economic unfreedom. 

We use a field experiment to test whether financial incentives can improve the quality of apprenticeship training. Trainers (firm owners) in the treatment group participated in a tournament incentive scheme where they received a payment based on their apprentices’ rank-order performance on a skills assessment. Trainers in the control group received a fixed payment based on their apprentices’ participation in the assessment. Performance on the assessment was higher in the treatment group. Two years later, treated apprentices scored 0.15σ higher on a low-stakes oral skills test and earned 24% more in total earnings, driven by higher self-employment profits. 

Abstract: Historians have long argued that early Bible translations in Africa played a crucial role in shaping modern ethnic groups by standardizing language and incorporating it into missionary school networks. These theories, however, have remained largely untested due to the lack of comprehensive data.  To address this gap, we digitize data on missionary activity and Bible translations including information on the year, site and extent of each translation. We combine these datasets with contemporary surveys from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) as well as the Afrobarometer to assess questions around the diffusion and salience of ethnicity. Our preliminary findings indicate that in regions surrounding a site of scripture translation, the likelihood of a person’s ethnic group aligning with the translated language increases with both the volume of translation and proximity to the translation site.  This trend persists even in areas outside a person’s ethnic homeland, suggesting that translation may facilitate the spread of ethnic identities. Moreover, areas with greater translation are today more ethnically homogenous. However, we find that increased translation also correlates with greater identification with a national identity over an ethnic one. To lend causal interpretation, we will use missionary society proclivity to translate the Bible as an instrumental variable. Furthermore, we are digitizing more detailed data on missionary activity, pre-missionary linguistic landscape and mission schools in Nigeria. These data will permit causal estimation of the effects of Bible translations as well as exploration into mechanisms albeit on a smaller scale.

Abstract: We examine the impact of government messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic in Tanzania. We first observe that in April 2020, beliefs and responses aligned with global trends. However, when the president suddenly declared the country virus-free in June 2020, public perception dramatically shifted. Over 90\% of respondents in subsequent rounds believed the government's claim of zero cases in the country. Providing information about the pandemic's severity in neighboring countries did not affect beliefs. The final round, following the president's unexpected death (allegedly from the virus), reveals how an abrupt change in the official narrative influenced public perception. Our study illuminates the potency of government communication in shaping beliefs and behaviours and the challenges of countering misinformation in authoritarian contexts.

In this paper, we revisit the long-run effects of mission stations on education outcomes in Africa. We make two major contributions. First, we use an extensive mission station dataset from the compilation of 6 missionary atlases (4 Protestant, 2 Catholic). Second, we assign missionary societies working in Africa as either being education-focused or not as a function of the number of education-focused investments they make. We validate this assignment on contemporary education outcomes from the 1849 Mission census in the Cape Colony. Taking the method to sub-Saharan Africa, we find that mission stations belong to education-focused societies have much larger education effects.