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

68 Pages Posted: 25 Oct 2015 Last revised: 27 Oct 2015

See all articles by Emilio Depetris-Chauvin

Emilio Depetris-Chauvin

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Ömer Özak

Southern Methodist University - Department of Economics; IZA; Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Date Written: October 26, 2015

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

JEL Classification: D74, F10, N47, O10, O17, Z10

Suggested Citation

Depetris-Chauvin, Emilio and Özak, Ömer, Population Diversity, Division of Labor and the Emergence of Trade and State (October 26, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2679382 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2679382

Emilio Depetris-Chauvin

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ( email )

Vicuna Mackenna 4860
Santiago, 99999
Chile

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/site/emiliodepetrischauvin/home

Ömer Özak (Contact Author)

Southern Methodist University - Department of Economics ( email )

Dallas, TX 75275
United States
+1-214-768-2755 (Phone)
+1-214-768-1821 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://omerozak.com

IZA

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Global Labor Organization (GLO) ( email )

Collogne
Germany

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