Poverty trap and educational shock : evidence from missionary fields

Low growth equilibria with low investment in human capital generally tend to persist till an external shock affects the economy. In this paper we use data on Christian missions to proxy a long-lasting educational shock in Africa. We estimate the effect of this shock on the quality of children which we proxy using the rate of underweight children. Consistent with the economic theory we find that the quality of children significantly rises with the exposure to this shock and this indirect effect accounts to almost 4 percent in terms of GDP for districts with the maximal exposure