María Noelia Romero es Candidata al Doctorado en Economía por la Universidad de Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Es Licenciada en Economía por la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán y Master en Economía por la Universidad de San Andrés, donde también se ha desempeñado como docente. Sus investigaciones se centran en temas de economía laboral y desarrollo económico, incluyendo cuestiones de género, educación y migración.

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between literacy and access to a Bible translations in vernacular languages in Uganda. We explore two empirical approaches to address the endogeneity of language translation. First, we compare individuals who reside in close proximity to a Christian mission based on whether or not there was a Bible translation completed in their mother tongue prior to Uganda’s independence in 1962. We find a positive yet not statistically significant association of 4.3 percentage points between literacy and access to a Bible translation; we can rule out effects of Bible translation on literacy larger than 16 percentage points. In the second empirical strategy, we compare cohorts within ethnic groups based on exposure to a Bible translation in their vernacular language during their time in school. For individuals born 10 years after a Bible translation in their mother tongue, we find an increase in literacy of 5 percentage points, and this effect is driven by individuals who are proximate to Protestant missions. We suggest that our results imply a negative selection bias of Bible translations to languages of ethnic groups with higher literacy rates, meaning that our estimates are an upper bound of the true effect of Bible translation on literacy.

Autores: María Noelia Romero (UIUC), Vinicius Oakada Da Silva (UIUC), Abigail Stocker (UIUC) & Rebecca Thornton (Baylor University)

Organizan: Departamento de Economía, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Revista Económica

Contacto: iie@econo.unlp.edu.ar