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ABSTRACT
We construct a database, with global coverage, that provides measures of the cultural and environmental characteristics of the pre-industrial ancestors of the world’s current populations. In this paper, we describe the construction of the database, including the underlying data, the procedure to produce the estimates, and the structure of the final data. We then provide illustrations of some of the variation in the data and provide an illustration of how the data can be used.
Notes
2 Although Acemoglu, Johnson & Robinson (Citation2002) show evidence of a reversal of fortunes among former European colonies, once one examines continuity at the level of societies rather than at the level of geography, then one again observes strong persistence (Putterman & Weil Citation2010).
3 The database is posted on the authors’ webpages. Although the url may change over time, currently the database can be accessed at https://scholar.harvard.edu/nunn/pages/data-0.
4 This source has been widely used in the political economy, economic history, and cultural economics literatures: e.g. Gennaioli & Rainer Citation2007, Alesina, Giulioano, & Nunn 2013, Michalopoulos & Pappaioannou Citation2013.
5 The digitized version of Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas was released in 1999. The release included 1,267 ethnic groups. However, two ethnic groups appear twice (Chilcotin and Tokelau). Thus, the Atlas includes 1,265 different ethnic groups. For a summary of the life’s work of George Peter Murdock, including the Ethnographic Atlas, see Spoehr Citation1985.
6 The formula for this is:
7 This is calculated as: