Inherited cultural diversity and wages: surname-based evidence

Philipp EhrlGetúlio and Leonardo Monasterio
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Philipp Ehrl

Journal of Economic Geography, 2024, vol. 24, issue 4, 595-614

Abstract: This article shows that inherited cultural diversity at the regional level generates a positive wage externality. We use administrative panel data on formally employed individuals in Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil from 2008 to 2013 and apply machine learning to infer the ancestry of workers from their surnames. We distinguish inherited diversity from birthplace diversity and use the plausibly exogenous location of former colonies to build an instrumental variable. The positive wage externality of inherited diversity withstands alternative explanations such as institutional quality, municipality size, human capital externalities, individual productivity differences, and sorting of workers.

Keywords: wage externality; ancestry; immigration; culture; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 J31 N16 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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