Are cultural differences good or bad for economic development? Can cultural differences generate conflicts and, therefore, retard economic development? Or can cultural diversity spur creativity and improve economic welfare? These are the type of questions that this chapter addresses. There are...

This research explores the historical roots and persistent effects of the division of labor in pre-modern societies. Exploiting a novel ethnic-level dataset, which combines geocoded ethnographic, linguistic and genetic data, it advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that population...

This research explores the historical roots of the division of labor in pre-modern societies. Exploiting a variety of identification strategies and a novel ethnic level dataset combining geocoded ethnographic, linguistic and genetic data, it shows that higher levels of intra-ethnic diversity...

Cultural diversity - in various forms - has in recent years turned into a prominent and relevant research and policy issue. There is an avalanche of studies across many disciplines that measure and analyse cultural diversity and its impacts. Based on different perspectives and features of the...

This article investigates economic performance when enforceable property rights are missing and subsistence needs matter. It shows that if per capita income is sufficiently high, a windfall gain in productivity triggers behavior that leads to higher growth (the normal reaction). The same shock...

This article investigates economic performance when enforceable property rights are missing and basic needs matter for consumption. It suggests a new view of the so-called voracity effect according to which windfall gains in productivity induce behavior that leads to lower economic growth....

Theories of early state formation posit that the state enabled an emerging elite to extract resources in exchange for protection from outside groups. This paper formalizes and empirically evaluates these forces in a unified framework. The model shows that extraction is closely linked to the idea...

Contests between groups are plagued by intra-group externalities (freeriding). Yet, costless incentive schemes that entirely avoid free-riding within a group might not be desirable, neither individually nor socially. In contests among two groups, a relatively weak (i.e., small or unproductive)...