Voodoo, Vaccines, and Bed Nets

We provide the first quantitative analysis to scrutinize the ample ethnographic evidence that magico-religious beliefs affect the demand for conventional health care in sub-Saharan Africa. We rely on the unique case of Benin, where Voodoo adherence is freely reported and varies greatly within villages and even within households yet can be traced to historic events that are arguably exogenous to present-day health-care behavior. These features allow us to account for confounding village and household factors and address self-selection into Voodoo. We find that Voodoo adherence of the mother is associated with lower uptake of preventive health-care measures and worse child health outcomes.