The Long-Lived Effects of Historic Climate on the Wealth of Nations

Akos Valentinyi (valentinyi.a@gmail.com), John Bluedorn and Michael Vlassopoulos

No 7572, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We investigate the long-run consequences of historic, climatic temperatures (1730-2000) for the modern cross-country income distribution. Using a newly constructed dataset of climatic temperatures stretching over three centuries (18th, 19th, and 20th), we estimate a robust and significant time-varying, non-monotonic effect of climatic temperature upon current incomes for a cross-section of 167 countries. We find a large, positive effect of 18th century climatic temperature and an even larger, negative effect of 19th century climatic temperature upon current incomes. When historic, climatic temperature is introduced, the effect of 20th century climatic temperature on current income is either weakly positive or insignificant. Our findings are robust to various sub-samples, additional geographic controls, and alternative income measures. The negative relationship between current, climatic temperature and current income that is commonly estimated appears to reflect the long-run effect of climatic variations in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Keywords: climate; Economic performance; Geography; History; Temperature (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N50 O11 O40 O50 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Long-Lived Effects of Historic Climate on the Wealth of Nations (2010)
Working Paper: The Long-Lived Effects of Historic Climate on the Wealth of Nations (2009)
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