Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/238150 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2021-02
Publisher: 
University of Massachusetts, Department of Economics, Amherst, MA
Abstract: 
Does what you exported matter? We build a new global commodity-level export database for the previous era of globalization and find persistence in productive capabilities proxied by economic complexity, export diversification, and sophistication across a century. We also show that productive capabilities at the turn of the 20th century are a powerful predictor of today's income levels. We demonstrate that our results are not driven by persistence in geography or institutions. The persistence mechanism is the complementarity between past and future productive capabilities with one important qualification, the persistent negative effect of European overseas colonization. We also study shocks that undermined persistence, confirm the resource course hypothesis for the long run and find a positive but slow effect of democratization.
JEL: 
F14
F63
N10
O10
O50
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.