Genetic Diversity and Economic Development: Assessing the Key Findings in Ashraf and Galor (2013)

Genetics
Development
Africa
This paper replicates Ashraf and Galor (2013) and finds that their conclusions about the link between genetic diversity and economic development are highly sensitive to data selection and covariates. By incorporating updated data and correcting a coding error, the paper shows that the original findings, including the role of trust and innovation, are not statistically robust.
Authors
Affiliations

Raymond Caraher

Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Michael Ash

Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Published

June 6, 2018

Abstract

Forthcoming in Current Anthropology

We replicate Ashraf and Galor (2013) and find that its conclusions concerning the association between human genetic diversity and economic development depend substantially on data selection. We incorporate additional genetic data from the Americas and find that the “hump-shaped” relationship between genetic diversity and economic development is not statistically robust. We also find that the results in Ashraf and Galor (2013) are sensitive to the selection of covariates, in particular the definition of continent fixed-effects. Additionally, we update the population data from the Americas using a more current source and find the magnitude of the relationship between economic development and genetic diversity drops substantially. Further, we find that the results in Ashraf and Galor (2013) analyzing contemporary GDP are dependent on the “ancestry-adjusted” component of genetic diversity. Lastly, we correct a coding error in Ashraf and Galor (2013) and find that the analysis of the mechanisms of trust and innovation are not robust to this correction.

Preprint

Key Figures

AG Figure 3 with Wang et al. (2007) Western Hemisphere Data

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{caraher2018,
  author = {Caraher, Raymond and Ash, Michael},
  title = {Genetic {Diversity} and {Economic} {Development:} {Assessing}
    the {Key} {Findings} in {Ashraf} and {Galor} (2013)},
  journal = {University of Massacusetts Amherst Economics Department
    Working Paper Series},
  date = {2018-06-06},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.7275/11867619},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Caraher, Raymond, and Michael Ash. 2018. “Genetic Diversity and Economic Development: Assessing the Key Findings in Ashraf and Galor (2013).” University of Massacusetts Amherst Economics Department Working Paper Series, June. https://doi.org/10.7275/11867619.