Ancestry and development: New evidence

Enrico Spolaore and Romain Wacziarg

Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2018, vol. 33, issue 5, 748-762

Abstract: We revisit the relationship between ancestral distance and barriers to the diffusion of development by replicating previous results with a new genomic dataset on human microsatellite variation. We find a statistically and economically significant effect of ancestral distance from the technological frontier on income per capita. The historical pattern of the effect is hump shaped, peaking between 1870 and 1913, and declining steeply afterwards. This suggests that ancestral distance acts as a temporary barrier to the diffusion of development. We also find that ancestral distance from the frontier is a barrier to the spread of specific technologies and institutions in modern times.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (71)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.2633

Related works:
Working Paper: Ancestry and Development: New Evidence (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:japmet:v:33:y:2018:i:5:p:748-762

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www3.intersci ... e.jsp?issn=0883-7252

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Applied Econometrics is currently edited by M. Hashem Pesaran

More articles in Journal of Applied Econometrics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().