POST-1500 POPULATION FLOWS AND THE LONG-RUN DETERMINANTS OF ECONOMIC GROWTH AND INEQUALITY

LOUIS PUTTERMAN AND DAVID N. WEIL
We construct a matrix showing the share of the year 2000 population in every
country that is descended from people in different source countries in the year
1500. Using the matrix to adjust indicators of early development so that they
reflect the history of a population’s ancestors rather than the history of the place
they live today greatly improves the ability of those indicators to predict current
GDP. The variance of the early development history of a country’s inhabitants is
a good predictor for current inequality, with ethnic groups originating in regions
having longer histories of organized states tending to be at the upper end of a
country’s income distribution.




数据：

http://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/Louis_Putterman/world%20migration%20matrix.htm