Celestial enlightenment: eclipses, curiosity and economic development among pre-modern ethnic groups

Anastasia Litina () and Èric Roca Fernández

No 2040, AMSE Working Papers from Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France

Abstract: This paper revisits the role of human capital for economic growth among pre-modern ethnic groups. We hypothesise that exposure to rare natural events drives curiosity and prompts thinking in an attempt to comprehend and explain the phenomenon, thus raising human capital and, ultimately, pre-modern growth. We focus on solar eclipses as one particular trigger of curiosity and empirically establish a robust relationship between their number and several proxies for economic prosperity: social complexity, technological level and population density. Variation in solar eclipse exposure is exogenous as their local incidence is randomly and sparsely distributed all over the globe. Additionally, eclipses' non-destructive character makes them outperform other uncanny natural events, such as volcano eruptions or earthquakes, which have direct negative economic effects. We also offer evidence compatible with the human capital increase we postulate, finding a more intricate thinking process in ethnic groups more exposed to solar eclipses. In particular, we study the development of written language, the playing of strategy games and the accuracy of the folkloric reasoning for eclipses.

Keywords: eclipses; human capital; development; curiosity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E02 N10 N30 O10 O50 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2020-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-gro, nep-his and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Solar Eclipses and the Origins of Critical Thinking and Complexity (2023)
Working Paper: Celestial enlightenment: eclipses, curiosity and economic development among pre-modern ethnic groups (2022)
Working Paper: Celestial enlightenment: eclipses, curiosity and economic development among pre-modern ethnic groups (2020)
Working Paper: The Terror of History: Solar Eclipses and the Origins of Social Complexity and Complex Thinking (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2040

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