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Staple Products, Linkages, and Development: Evidence from Argentina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2021

Federico Droller  and
Martin Fiszbein
Federico Droller
Affiliation:
Federico Droller is Associate Professor, Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH), Departamento de Economía, Chile. Av. Lib. B. O’Higgins 3363, Estación Central, RM, Chile. E-mail: federico.droller@usach.cl.
Martin Fiszbein*
Affiliation:
Martin Fiszbein is Assistant Professor, Boston University – Economics, 270 Bay State Rd, Boston, MA 02115.
*
E-mail: fiszbein@bu.edu.
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Abstract

We investigate how historical patterns of primary production influenced development across local economies in Argentina. Our identification strategy exploits exogenous variation in the composition of primary production induced by climatic features. We find that locations specializing in ranching had weaker linkages with other activities, higher concentration in land ownership, lower population density, and less immigration than cereal-producing areas. Over time, ranching localities continued to exhibit lower population density, and they experienced relatively sluggish industrialization. Ultimately, ranching specialization had large negative effects on long-run levels of income per capita and human capital.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , September 2021 , pp. 723 - 762
Copyright
© The Economic History Association 2021

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Footnotes

We thank Samuel Bazzi, William Collins, James Fenske, Eric Hilt, Kevin Lang, Emiliano Libman, Max McDevitt, Dilip Mookherjee, Santiago Pérez, Agustina Rayes, Marcelo Rougier, and Gabriella Santangelo as well as seminar participants at the University of Ottawa, Universidad de Chile, Boston University, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, the Economic History Clio Lab Meetings at PUC-Chile, the RIDGE Workshop on Macroeconomics and Development, the Economic History Conference at Universidad de San Andrés, the RIDGE Workshop on Economic History, and the LANE HOPE seminar for helpful comments. All errors are our own. Federico Droller acknowledges support from FONDECYT (grant 11170498, Proyecto FONDECYT Iniciación, CONICYT, Chile).

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