Population Diversity, Division of Labor and Comparative Development

Emilio Depetris-Chauvin and Ömer Özak

No 1605, Departmental Working Papers from Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics

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, linguistic 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 that higher levels of population diversity were conducive to economic specialization and the emergence of trade-related institutions that, in turn, translated into pre-modern era differences in comparative development. Additionally, this research provides suggestive evidence that regions historically inhabited by pre-modern societies with high levels of economic specialization have higher levels of contemporary occupational heterogeneity, economic complexity and development.

Keywords: Economic Specialization; Division of Labor; Trade; Comparative Development; Economic Development; Population Diversity; Population Heterogeneity; Genetic Diversity; Linguistic Diversity; Diversity; Persistence; Out of Africa; Serial Founder Effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 F10 F14 N10 O10 O11 O12 O40 O43 O44 O47 O49 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-gro
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Population Diversity, Division of Labor and Comparative Development (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:smu:ecowpa:1605

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