CLIMATIC FLUCTUATIONS AND THE DIFFUSION OF AGRICULTURE

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ashraf, Quamrul; Michalopoulos, Stelios
• 署名单位: Williams College; Brown University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00461
• 发表日期: 2015-07
• 页码: 589-609
• 关键词: transition; origins; geography; holocene; GROWTH; MODEL

摘要

This research examines the climatic origins of the diffusion of Neolithic agriculture across countries and archaeological sites. The theory suggests that a foraging society's history of climatic shocks shaped the timing of its adoption of farming. Specifically, as long as climatic disturbances did not lead to a collapse of the underlying resource base, the rate at which hunter-gatherers were climatically propelled to experiment with their habitats determined the accumulation of tacit knowledge complementary to farming. Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, the empirical investigation demonstrates that, conditional on biogeographic endowments, climatic volatility has a hump-shaped effect on the timing of the adoption of agriculture.