Population Diversity, Division of Labor and the Emergence of Trade and State

Emilio Depetris-Chauvin and Ömer Özak

No 14228, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: This research explores the emergence and prevalence of economic specialization and trade in pre-modern societies. It advances the hypothesis, and establishes empirically that population diversity had a positive causal effect on economic specialization and trade. Based on a novel ethnic level dataset combining geocoded ethnographic and genetic data, this research exploits the exogenous variation in population diversity generated by the “Out-of-Africa” migration of anatomically modern humans to causally establish the positive effect of population diversity on economic specialization and the emergence of trade-related institutions, which, in turn, facilitated the historical formation of states. Additionally, it provides suggestive evidence that regions historically inhabited by pre-modern societies with high levels of economic specialization have a larger occupational heterogeneity and are more developed today.

Keywords: Economic Specialization; Division of Labor; Trade; State Formation; Population Diversity; Population Heterogeneity; Genetic Diversity; Diversity; Emergence of State; Persistence; Out of Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 F10 N47 O10 O17 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 76
Date: 2015-12-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/8620/dcede2015-43.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Population Diversity, Division of Labor and the Emergence of Trade and State (2015)
Working Paper: Population Diversity, Division of Labor and the Emergence of Trade and State (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000089:014228

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