Arcangelo Dimico (Queens University of Belfast)

"Trade-Off Quality vs Quantity, Poverty Trap, and Educational Shock: Evidence from Missionary Fields"

Abstract 

We use data on the educational shock related to early Christian missions to estimate the effect of this shock on the trade-off between quality and quantity of children. The mechanism behind this effect is related to an intergenerational human capital transmission such that districts which were more exposed to Christian missions still have an advantage in terms of education which then affects the choice for quality of children and affects the probability of escaping from a sort of poverty trap where low educated parents prefer quantity over quality. The effect is estimated using a matching estimator in which regions sharing same preferences for education and fertility are matched together to neutralizes these sorts of biases.