Contact and Commitment to Development: Evidence from quasi-random missionary assignments
Corresponding Author
Lee Crawfurd
Dr. Lee Crawfurd Senior Research Associate Center for Global Development in Europe (CGD Europe) 1 Abbey Gardens, Great College Street, London, UK SW1P 3SE lee.crawfurd@gmail.com. Acknowledgements: I'm grateful for helpful comments, advice, and inspiration to Jana Riess, Benjamin Knoll, Lant Pritchett, David K. Evans, Ryan T. Cragun, Matthew Martinich, Derill D. Watson, Matthew Collin, Rohit Naimpally, Georgina Turner, Matt Lowe, two anonymous referees, and editors for Kyklos.
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Lee Crawfurd
Dr. Lee Crawfurd Senior Research Associate Center for Global Development in Europe (CGD Europe) 1 Abbey Gardens, Great College Street, London, UK SW1P 3SE lee.crawfurd@gmail.com. Acknowledgements: I'm grateful for helpful comments, advice, and inspiration to Jana Riess, Benjamin Knoll, Lant Pritchett, David K. Evans, Ryan T. Cragun, Matthew Martinich, Derill D. Watson, Matthew Collin, Rohit Naimpally, Georgina Turner, Matt Lowe, two anonymous referees, and editors for Kyklos.
Search for more papers by this authorSUMMARY
Public support for global development in rich countries is critical for sustaining effective government and individual action. But the causes of public support are not well understood. Does spending time living in a developing country play a role in generating individual commitment to development? Addressing this question is fraught with selection bias, as individuals are rarely exogenously assigned to spend time in different countries. In this paper I address this question using a natural experiment – the quasi-random assignment of missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to two-year missions in different world regions. I provide the first causal estimates of the effect of travel to a developing country on attitudes to global development. Data comes from a new survey gathered through mission alumni Facebook groups. Missionaries assigned to low-income and middle-income world regions (Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Caribbean) have similar prior characteristics to those assigned to high-income Europe. Those assigned to Africa self-report greater interest in global development and greater charitable attitudes and behaviours. However, they also express stronger opposition to immigration from poor countries, and are less likely to be involved in political campaigns to address global development. Spending time in lower income countries may lead to greater support for charity but less support for political change.
Supporting Information
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kykl12255-sup-0001-supplementary material.pdfPDF document, 750.7 KB |
Table A1: Location of Missions and Missionaries Table A2: Mission and “How interested are you in global development?” Table A3: Mission and “Immigration to the US from poor countries is too high” Table A4: Mission and “US government aid to poor countries is too high” Table A5: Heterogeneity by High School Test Score Table A6: Heterogeneity by Sex Table A7: Heterogeneity by Age Table A8: Former Latter-day Saints, by Mission Figure A1: Marginal effect of region assignment on main outcomes Figure A2: Outcomes by Age |
Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.
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