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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
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 …
Institutions, The Rise Of Commerce And The Persistence Of Laws: Interest Restrictions In Islam And Christianity, Jared Rubin
Institutions, The Rise Of Commerce And The Persistence Of Laws: Interest Restrictions In Islam And Christianity, Jared Rubin
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
Why was economic development retarded in the Middle East relative to Western Europe, despite the Middle East being far ahead for centuries? A theoretical model inspired and substantiated by the history of interest restrictions suggests that this outcome emanates in part from the greater degree to which early Islamic political authorities derived legitimacy from religious authorities. This entailed a feedback mechanism in Europe in which the rise of commerce led to the relaxation of interest restrictions while also diminishing the Church's ability to legitimise political authorities. These interactions did not occur in the Islamic world despite equally amenable economic conditions.