Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LODALORD (Local Diversity and Long-Run Development)
Teaser
Social scientists have long studied the effects of population diversity on society. The research project proposed here breaks new ground in multiple dimensions by rigorously estimating the long-run effects of (i) local population diversity, (ii) individual diversity, and (iii)...
Summary
Social scientists have long studied the effects of population diversity on society. The research project proposed here breaks new ground in multiple dimensions by rigorously estimating the long-run effects of (i) local population diversity, (ii) individual diversity, and (iii) the interaction between these two concepts, on comparative socioeconomic performance across locations and lineages within a country.
Through a combination of two extensive high-quality databases covering the complete genealogy of a large territory, spanning its settlement in the 16th century up to present day, I will analyze the effects of diversity using measures of diversity that are well-established in the field of quantitative genetics. The project will deliver the first within-country long-run investigations involving local and individual diversity. First, I hypothesize that the diversity of an individual’s ancestors has a significant effect on the productivity of that individual as well as his descendants. In particular, I hypothesize that individuals from more diverse lineages were more capable of adjusting to changing economic conditions, finding new productive niches, and thus raising that individual’s income. Second, I hypothesize that the negative effects of diversity found on the country level are less operative within a country. Thus, I expect to find that local population diversity has had a monotonically positive effect on long-run development within a country. Third, I hypothesize that there is an interaction effect between population-level and individual-level diversity. Thus, I suggest that the effect of individual diversity is affected by the diversity of the locality in which the individual is situated. In particular, I hypothesize that there is a greater benefit to individual diversity in less diverse localities.
The impact of diversity on economic performance is a highly debated topic and the present research project sheds new lights on this widely discussed topic.
Work performed
New measures of individual and local population diversity is generated based on a large genealogy. Statistical analyses establish that lcoations with higher levels of genealogical diversity in the initial (pre-1800) period are characterized by higher levels of socioeconomic performance in the most recent (post-1960) period of the data. This association is robust to controlling for measures of initial performance, such as the initial level of socioeconomic performance and initial population size. The effect appears to be causal: when instrumenting the genealogical diversity measure with a foundamental instrument for the degree of initial diversity, the coefficient remains the same order of magnitude and highly significant. The effect is also robust to a wide range of robustness checks. Our analysis also establishes that locations with higher levels of initial genealogical diversity are characterized by lower within-location variation in socioeconomic performance. Among other things, we also find significant effects of individual genealogical diversity (i.e., inbreeding) on socioeconomic performance. Interestingly, this effect interacts with the overall level of diversity in each location.
Final results
The research project proposed here breaks new ground in multiple dimensions by rigorously investigating the long-run effects of (i) local-level within-group diversity, (ii) individual-level diversity, and (iii) the interaction between these two concepts, on comparative socioeconomic performance across locations and lineages within a country.
Website & more info
More info: http://web.econ.ku.dk/klemp/.