Missions and Heterogeneous Social Change: Evidence from Border Discontinuities in the Emirates of Nigeria

Abstract

How and why have colonial-era Christian missions brought about social change in the long run? This paper addresses this question by causally estimating average and heterogeneous effects of colonial-era Christian missions on schooling, fertility, and household wealth in Nigeria. Our identification strategy exploits discontinuities in mission stations around the borders of the Emirates of Northern Nigeria, where missionary activities were restricted by the colonial administration. We find that areas with greater historical missionary activities have higher levels of schooling, lower levels of fertility, and higher household wealth today. Consistent with the predictions of a simple model, the long-run effect of missions on current schooling is not found in areas with early access to government schools, and is larger for population subgroups-women and Muslims-that have historically suffered disadvantages in access to education. Importantly, we show that the restriction of missions from the Emirates of Northern Nigeria has led to a reversal of fortunes, wherein areas that were more prosperous and institutionally developed in the past are relatively poorer today.