Working Paper: NBER ID: w21907
Authors: Stelios Michalopoulos; Louis Putterman; David N. Weil
Abstract: Does a person's historical lineage influence his or her current economic status? Motivated by a large literature in social sciences stressing the effect of an early transition to agriculture on current economic performance at the level of countries, we examine the relative contemporary status of individuals as a function of how much their ancestors relied on agriculture during the pre-industrial era. We focus on Africa, where by combining anthropological records of groups with individual level survey data we can explore the effect of the historical lifeways of one's forefathers. Within enumeration areas and occupational groups, we find that individuals from ethnicities that derived a larger share of subsistence from agriculture in the precolonial era are today more educated and wealthy. A tentative exploration of channels suggests that differences in attitudes and beliefs as well as differential treatment by others, including differential political power, may contribute to these divergent outcomes.
Keywords: Ancestral Lifeways; Economic Outcomes; Sub-Saharan Africa; Agriculture; Cultural Traits
JEL Codes: O00; O13; O40; Z00
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Cultural traits from agricultural ancestors (Q15) | Current economic performance (E66) |
| Political treatment and land suitability (R52) | Current economic outcomes (E66) |
| Ancestral reliance on agriculture (Q15) | Current education levels (I21) |
| Ancestral reliance on agriculture (Q15) | Current wealth levels (E21) |