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One of the most powerful cultural transformations in modern history has been the dramatic expansion of Christianity outside Europe. Recent, yet extensive, literature uses Christian missions established during colonial times as a source of exogenous variation to study the long-term effects of religion, human capital and culture in Africa, the Americas and Asia. We argue that the endogeneity of missionary expansion may be underestimated, thus questioning the link between missions and economic development. Using annual panel data on missions from 1751 to 1932 in Ghana as well as cross-sectional data on missions for 43 sub-Saharan African countries in 1900 and 1924, we show that: (i) locational decisions were driven by economic factors, as missionaries went to healthier, safer, and more accessible and developed areas, privileging the best locations first; (ii) these factors may spuriously explain why locations with past missions are more developed today, especially as most studies rely on historical mission atlases that tend to only report the best mission locations. Our study identifies factors behind the spatial diffusion of religion. It also highlights the risks of omission and endogenous measurement error biases when using historical data and events for identification

While Ghana is a classic case of economic growth in an agricultural-export colony, scholars have queried whether it was sustained, and how far its benefits were widely distributed, socially and regionally. Using height as a measure of human well-being we explore the evolution of living standards and regional inequality in Ghana from 1870 to 1980. Our findings suggest that, overall, living standards improved during colonial times and that a trend reversal occurred during the economic crisis in the 1973-83. In a regression analysis we test several covariates reflecting the major economic and social changes that took place in early twentiethcentury Ghana including railway construction, cocoa production, missionary activities, and urbanization. We find significant height gains in cocoa producing areas, whereas heights decreased with urbanization.

The field of African economic history is in resurgence. This paper reviews recent and on-going research contributions and notes strengths in their wide methodological, conceptual and topical variety. In these strengths there is also a challenge: different methodological approaches may also result in divisions, particularly on the quantitative versus qualitative axis. The African Economic History Network has recently been formed to bridge the gap between methods and sources and to facilitate intellectual exchanges among the widest possible range of scholars working on Sub-Saharan economic history. This paper outlines current research projects and calls for future research as well as suggesting promising lines of enquiry in the discipline.