The Origins of the Division of Labor in Pre-modern Times

Emilio Depetris-Chauvin and Ömer Özak

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This research explores the historical roots of the division of labor in pre-modern societies. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that intra-ethnic diversity had a positive effect on the division of labor across ethnicities in the pre-modern era. Exploiting a variety of identification strategies and a novel ethnic level dataset combining geocoded ethnographic, linguistic and genetic data, it establishes that higher levels of intra-ethnic diversity were conducive to economic specialization in the pre-modern era. The findings are robust to a host of geographical, institutional, cultural and historical confounders, and suggest that variation in intra-ethnic diversity is the main predictor of the division of labor in pre-modern times.

Keywords: Comparative Development; Division of Labor; Economic Specialization; Intra-Ethnic Diversity; Cultural Diversity; Population Diversity; Genetic Diversity; Linguistic Diversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D29 D74 E40 F10 F14 J24 N10 O10 O11 O12 O40 O43 O44 Z10 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-02-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-his, nep-hpe and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/84894/1/MPRA_paper_84894.pdf original version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/89553/1/MPRA_paper_89553.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/100404/1/MPRA_paper_89553.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/100404/5/MPRA_paper_100404.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Origins of the Division of Labor in Pre-modern Times (2020)
Working Paper: The Origins of the Division of Labor in Pre-modern Times (2018)
Working Paper: The Origins of the Division of Labor in Pre-Modern Times (2018)
Working Paper: The Origins of the Division of Labor in Pre-modern Times (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:84894

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