Agricultural Transition and the Adoption of Primitive Technology

James Ang

No 1412, Economic Growth Centre Working Paper Series from Nanyang Technological University, School of Social Sciences, Economic Growth Centre

Abstract: This paper tests Jared Diamond’s influential theory that an earlier transition from a hunter-gatherer society to agricultural production induces higher levels of technology adoption. Using a proxy for the geographic diffusion barriers of Neolithic technology and an index of biogeographic endowments to isolate the exogenous component of the timing of agricultural transition, the findings indicate that countries that experienced earlier transitions to agriculture were subsequently more capable of adopting new technologies in 1000 BC, 1 AD and 1500 AD. These results lend strong support to Diamond’s hypothesis.

Keywords: technology adoption; agricultural transition; early economic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O30 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-evo, nep-his and nep-sea
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http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/hss2/egc/wp/2014/2014-12.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: AGRICULTURAL TRANSITION AND THE ADOPTION OF PRIMITIVE TECHNOLOGY (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nan:wpaper:1412

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