Historical Frontiers and the Rise of Inequality: The Case of the Frontier of Granada

Oto‐Peralías, Daniel; Romero‐Ávila, Diego

doi:10.1093/jeea/jvw004

Cited by 25 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…To further eliminate the influence of unobservable factors, we use randomly constructed artificial boundaries of Sichuan and Chongqing for validation. Specifically, we refer to the methods of Oto and Romero and Jia et al to construct random artificial boundary lines of Sichuan and Chongqing (non-linear, see Figure 5) [31,32], then generate artificial treatment and control groups based on the artificial boundary lines for regression, repeat this process 1000 times, and compare the coefficients with the real coefficients. Figure 6 shows the cumulative distribution of the coefficients obtained from the 1000 iterations.…”

Section: Placebo Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Hierarchy and Long-Term Effects on TFP: Evidence from a Provincial Elevation in China

Yang

2023

Sustainability

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This paper examines the effects of political hierarchy on firms’ long-term total factor productivity using evidence from the elevation of Chongqing to provincial-level government in China. Using the elevation as an exogenous shock and the Sichuan-Chongqing border as a dividing line, we utilized the spatial regression discontinuity approach to identify the causal link. We found that before Chongqing’s elevation to a provincial-level municipality, the TFP of Chongqing firms was not significantly different from that of Sichuan firms, but after the elevation, the TFP of Chongqing firms near the border was significantly lower than that of Sichuan firms. The mechanism analysis shows that the land transaction price in Chongqing is significantly lower than that in Sichuan Province, which leads to an abundance of low-productivity firms and the “crowding out” of high-productivity firms. We also found that government intervention in Chongqing exacerbates the degree of resource misallocation at the firm level, which together lead to a decline in firm TFP.

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Section: Placebo Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Hierarchy and Long-Term Effects on TFP: Evidence from a Provincial Elevation in China

Yang

2023

Sustainability

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“…After crushing the rebellion, Castilian King Alfonso X ordered the expulsion of the Muslim population from all this area, who moved to Granada and North Africa. From this point onward, this large territory had to be colonized exclusively with Christians from other parts of the kingdom (Laredo Quesada and González Jiménez, 1977;Oto-Peralías and Romero-Ávila, 2017b). The first period of Christian control was marked by a very high military instability and frontier warfare due to the Granadian and Marinid incursions.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Communal lands and social capital: A case study

Oto‐Peralías¹

2023

Preprint

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This paper explores the link between the historical presence of communal goods and the emergence of social capital. I conduct a survey to compare individuals from a town where communal lands have persisted since medieval times with individuals from neighboring-similar towns. I find that individuals exposed to communal lands have higher local social capital as they trust their neighbors more, have more local altruism, are more interested in local politics, and have a better knowledge about the town’s politics and history. Importantly, the effect is mainly present in individuals with family roots in the town, and there is no evidence of a positive effect on social capital beyond the local community.

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“…Since Argentinean law has been formally applied across the entire country since 1853, we believe the key transmission mechanism between the persistent effect of Real Audiencia and long‐run development is constituted by the persistence of unequal distribution of political power inherited from the Spanish colonial empire, which has been associated with higher land inequality, greater concentration of economic power, and patronage‐preserving institutional equilibria (Benton 2002; Oto‐Peralías & Romero‐Avila 2016, 2017).…”

Section: Long Shadow Of Audiencia Realmentioning

confidence: 99%

Persistent Effects of Colonial Institutions on Long‐Run Development: Local Evidence from Regression Discontinuity Design in Argentina

Spruk

Kovač

2020

J Empirical Legal Studies

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We exploit the discontinuity in the integration into the colonial court district of Real Audiencia in Upper Peru to estimate how colonial institutions have impacted local development across 527 departments in Argentina. Our identification strategy takes advantage of georeferenced spatial boundary splits with local quasi-randomization between the localities integrated into the colonial court jurisdiction and the localities outside Audiencia's jurisdiction. The results show the impact of colonial institutions imposed by real audiencia in Upper Peru is both strong and remarkably persistent. Departments outside the colonial court district have lower literacy rates, a less computer-literate population, better physical and digital infrastructure, and more widespread computer ownership. The established effects of real audiencia do not seem driven by the climatic conditions and environment of disease, and are robust to a battery of specification checks, placebo tests, and falsification tests. We show that Audiencia's effect persisted through its influence on public goods provision, economic specialization patterns, clientelist networks, and elite control of the political representation. Thousands of miles away from Spain, in an age of slow communication, entrusted with the assignment of all sorts of lucrative offices, encomiendas, and commercial privileges, and having friends, relatives and special interests to serve, a governor was surrounded by countless officials who were eagerly awaiting their share of booty, and who were ready at a moment's notice to turn traitor if they could gain by such an act, It may be said of the Spanish colonial governor as was said of Verres of old, that in stealing, once must steal threefold, once for himself, once for his judges, and once to pay the penalty.

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Historical Frontiers and the Rise of Inequality: The Case of the Frontier of Granada

Cited by 25 publications

References 45 publications

Political Hierarchy and Long-Term Effects on TFP: Evidence from a Provincial Elevation in China

Political Hierarchy and Long-Term Effects on TFP: Evidence from a Provincial Elevation in China

Communal lands and social capital: A case study

Persistent Effects of Colonial Institutions on Long‐Run Development: Local Evidence from Regression Discontinuity Design in Argentina

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