Abstract
This thesis contains three empirical essays that explore the fundamental driving forces of comparative development across world economies and American counties. Chapter 1 empirically establishes that interpersonal population diversity, measured by an index of prehistorically determined genetic diversity, helps explain worldwide differences in the stringency of climate change policies. It advances the hypothesis that heterogeneity in the compositions of genetic traits, originating from the prehistoric course of the exodus of Homo sapiens from East Africa tens of thousands of years ago, is a major barrier to implementing stringent climate-friendly policies and measures. The underlying intuition is that genetically fragmented societies, characterized by interpersonal mistrust, preference heterogeneity and persistent poor-quality institutions, find it difficult to sustain collective climate action. Using data for 84 world economies, I find evidence that prehistorically determined genetic diversity has a negative influence on the stringency of climate-related policies and measures. Furthermore, I document that descendants of ancestral societies with greater genetic diversity are less likely to exhibit pro-climate behavior, consistent with a mechanism of intergenerational transmission of cultural norms of mistrust and non-cooperation. The findings suggest that strengthening national responses to changing climate conditions requires considering the long-term legacy of deeply rooted genetic diversity. Chapter 2 proposes a novel hypothesis that early state institutions have a persistent influence on the cross-country variation in contemporary health status. Specifically, statehood experience, accumulated over thousands of years in history, reflects the ability to consolidate power and create strong bureaucracy. The basic idea is that accumulated experience with state-like polities in history is associated with better state capacity, which is of importance for the provision of public health services, thereby leading to health improvements. It follows from the central hypothesis of Chapter 2 that long-standing states with enhanced fiscal and legal capabilities tend to enjoy better health outcomes, whereas poor health is more prevalent in newly established states. Using a global sample of 143 countries, I show that statehood experience, accumulated from 3500BCE to 2000CE, has a positive and negative influence on life expectancy and mortality rates, respectively. Further analyses indicate that state capacity plays a key role in explaining the relationship between statehood experience and contemporary health outcomes. The core findings of Chapter 2 are suggestive of the importance of the formation and development of historical states in shaping persistent poor health in many societies across the world. For this reason, combating health inequality critically depends on reducing the persistence of weak state capacity, which is deeply rooted in state history. Chapter 3 sheds light on long-term cultural barriers to strengthening collective action with regard to COVID-19 vaccination. I propose that ‘rugged individualism’, characterized by emphasis on self-reliance and strong antipathy to government intervention, is linked to a greater prevalence of resistance to inoculation against the coronavirus across American counties. The main hypothesis of Chapter 3 rests upon the premise that a culture of rugged individualism is linked to reduced social capital, political polarization, and distrust in science, thus undermining collective effort in inoculation against COVID-19. Using subnational data for the United States, I consistently find evidence that rugged individualism, captured by long-term exposure to the westward-moving frontier in American history, has a positive influence on the predicted share of the population that is hesitant towards voluntary vaccination against COVID-19. In addition, individualistic counties tend to suffer from under-vaccination, measured by lower rates of the population that has been fully inoculated against COVID-19. More broadly, the findings suggest that rugged individualism is an impediment to resolving collective action problems, notwithstanding the widely acknowledged positive impacts of individualistic culture on innovation and long-run economic performance.