TY  - JOUR
AU  - Putterman,Louis
AU  - Weil,David N.
TI  - Post-1500 Population Flows and the Long Run Determinants of Economic Growth and Inequality
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14448
PY  - 2008
Y2  - October 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14448
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14448.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Louis Putterman
Department of Economics
Brown University
64 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
E-Mail: Louis_Putterman@brown.edu

David N. Weil
Department of Economics
Box B
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401/863-1754
Fax: 401/863-1970
E-Mail: david_weil@brown.edu
AB  - We construct a matrix showing the share of the year 2000 population in every country that is descended from people in different source countries in the year 1500.   Using this matrix, we analyze how post-1500 migration has influenced the level of GDP per capita and within-country income inequality in the world today.  Indicators of early development such as early state history and the timing of transition to agriculture have much better predictive power for current GDP when one looks at the ancestors of the people who currently live in a country than when one considers the history on that country’s territory, without adjusting for migration.   Measures of the ethnic or linguistic heterogeneity of a country’s current population do not predict income inequality as well as measures of the ethnic or linguistic heterogeneity of the current population’s ancestors. An even better predictor of current inequality in a country is the variance of early development history of the country’s inhabitants, with ethnic groups originating in regions having longer histories of agriculture and organized states tending to be at the upper end of a country’s income distribution.  However, high within-country variance of early development also predicts higher income per capita, holding constant the average level of early development.
ER  -