Protestant Missionaries Are Associated With Reduced Community Cohesion

Abstract Do Protestant missionaries affect community cohesion? This study puts forth two mechanisms that link to trusting, cooperative life: pro-social preferences and social networks. On the one hand, espouse charity, they establish regular venues of interaction. other propagate an individualist faith, provide identity along which communities may separate. The effect on cohesion is thus unclear. To make headway these conflicting theoretical predictions, we variation in missionary activity southeastern Peru. We document villages with missions show lower levels compared non-missionized, Catholic villages. point weakened networks as most likely causal channel sizes are particularly large among Pentecostal missionaries.