Working Paper: NBER ID: w18765
Authors: Quamrul Ashraf; Stelios Michalopoulos
Abstract: This research examines the climatic origins of the diffusion of Neolithic agriculture across countries and archaeological sites. The theory suggests that a foraging society s history of climatic shocks shaped the timing of its adoption of farming. Specifically, as long as climatic disturbances did not lead to a collapse of the underlying resource base, the rate at which hunter-gatherers were climatically propelled to experiment with their habitats determined the accumulation of tacit knowledge complementary to farming. Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, the empirical investigation demonstrates that, conditional on biogeographic endowments, climatic volatility has a hump-shaped effect on the timing of the adoption of agriculture.
Keywords: climatic fluctuations; agriculture diffusion; Neolithic revolution; climatic shocks
JEL Codes: O11; O13; O31; O33; O44; Q54; Q55; Q56
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| climatic volatility (Q54) | timing of the adoption of agriculture (N51) |
| moderate climatic shocks (Q54) | accumulation of tacit knowledge (D83) |
| accumulation of tacit knowledge (D83) | timing of the adoption of agriculture (N51) |
| extreme climatic conditions (Q54) | timing of the adoption of agriculture (N51) |