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Catholics versus Protestants: On the Benefit Incidence of Faith-Based Foreign Aid

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  • Niklas Bengtsson

Abstract

We estimate the impact of a village-level assistance program run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania on schooling and literacy. These programs are partly funded by foreign aid from US and Scandinavian donors. Difference-in-difference estimates suggest that the program increased literacy by 15-20 percentage points and educational attainment by 10-15 percentage points, but only among Protestant children. Catholic children living in the same targeted villages were unaffected. Supplementary evidence implies that these results cannot be explained by observable differences at baseline, nor are Catholic households less inclined to accept development assistance in general. The combined results support the concern that faith organizations might overstate their ability to aid households of different faith.

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  • Niklas Bengtsson, 2013. "Catholics versus Protestants: On the Benefit Incidence of Faith-Based Foreign Aid," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(3), pages 479-502.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:ecdecc:doi:10.1086/669257
    DOI: 10.1086/669257
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    4. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
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    2. Congdon Fors, Heather & Isaksson, Ann-Sofie & Annika, Lindskog, 2023. "Changing local customs: Long-run impacts of the earliest campaigns against female genital cutting," Working Papers in Economics 831, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    3. Basedau, Matthias & Gobien, Simone & Prediger, Sebastian, 2017. "The Ambivalent Role of Religion for Sustainable Development: A Review of the Empirical Evidence," GIGA Working Papers 297, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    4. Matthias Basedau & Simone Gobien & Sebastian Prediger, 2018. "The Multidimensional Effects Of Religion On Socioeconomic Development: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 1106-1133, September.
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    6. Faraz Usmani & Marc Jeuland & Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, 2018. "NGOs and the effectiveness of interventions," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-59, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Faraz Usmani & Marc Jeuland & Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, 2024. "NGOs and the Effectiveness of Interventions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1690-1708, November.

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