This paper uses a historical setting to study when religion can be a barrier to the diffusion of knowledge and economic development, and through which mechanism. I focus on 19th-century Catholicism and analyze a crucial phase of modern economic growth, the Second Industrial Revolution...

Can religiosity affect the emergence and migration patterns of scientists? We focus on 19th-century France, a period in which the Catholic Church had embraced a particularly antiscientific attitude, and we exploit variation in intensity of Catholicism. Using data on the places of birth and death...

This paper studies when religion can hamper diffusion of knowledge and economic development and through which mechanism. I examine Catholicism in France during the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914). In this period, technology became skill-intensive, leading to the introduction of...