Late for History

Abstract

In Historical Economics, Persistence studies document the persistence of some historical phenomenon or leverage this persistence to identify causal relationships of interest in the present. In this chapter, we analyze the implications of allowing for heterogeneous treatment effects in these studies. We delineate their common empirical structure, argue that heterogeneous treatment effects are likely in their context, and propose minimal abstract models that help interpret results and guide the development of empirical strategies to uncover the mechanisms generating the effects.