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

Emilio Depetris-Chauvin and Ömer Özak

No 1803, Departmental Working Papers from Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics

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: Economic Comparative Development; Division of Labor; Economic Specialization; Intra-Ethnic Diversity; Cultural Diversity; Population Diversity; Genetic Diversity; Linguistic Diversity; Serial Founder Effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 F10 F14 J24 N10 O10 O11 O12 O40 O43 O44 Z10 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-gro, nep-his and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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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:smu:ecowpa:1803

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