Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Intellectual History
The Lotus Sutra, James Shields
Reading, Writing, And Religion: Institutions And Human Capital Formation, Latika Chaudhary, Jared Rubin
Reading, Writing, And Religion: Institutions And Human Capital Formation, Latika Chaudhary, Jared Rubin
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
In this paper, we empirically test the role that religious and political institutions play in the accumulation of human capital. Using a new data set on literacy in colonial India, we find that Muslim literacy is negatively correlated with the proportion of Muslims in the district, although we find no similar result for Hindu literacy. We employ a theoretical model which suggests that districts which experienced a more recent collapse of Muslim political authority had more powerful and better funded religious authorities, who established religious schools which were less effective at promoting literacy on the margin than state schools. We …