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GUNS, PARASITES, AND STATES: THREE ESSAYS ON COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT AND POLITICAL ECONOMY BY EMILIO DEPETRIS CHAUVIN B.A., UNIVERSIDAD DE BUENOS AIRES, 2003 M.A., BROWN UNIVERSITY, 2009 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS AT BROWN UNIVERSITY PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2014 c Copyright 2014 by Emilio Depetris Chauvin To Jennifer with all my love and deepest gratitude This dissertation by Emilio Depetris Chauvin is accepted in its present form by the Department of Economics as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date David Weil, Adviser Recommended to the Graduate Council Date Pedro Dal B´o, Reader Date Stylianos Michalopoulos, Reader Date Brian Knight, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date Peter Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii Vita Emilio Depetris Chauvin was born on September 3th, 1979 in Buenos Aires, Ar- gentina. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Universidad de Buenos Aires in 2003. He started his graduated studies in Argentina and completed all the course work for the M.A. in Economics at Universidad de San Andr´es. Before joining Brown Univer- sity, he worked as an economist in several think tanks and as country economist for the World Bank in Argentina. He enrolled in Brown University’s Economics Ph.D. program in 2008 and obtained his M.A. in Economics in 2009. While at Brown, he was a fellow of the Initiative in Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4). In the course of his graduate school career, he was awarded a Brown Graduate School Fellowship, the Abramson Prize for Best Third-year Research Paper, a Merit Disser- tation Fellowship, and the Professor Borts Prize for Oustanding Ph.D. Dissertation in Economics. He received a Ph.D. in 2014 and will continue his research and teaching in Economics as an Assistant Professor at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. iv Acknowledgements This dissertation could not have been finished without the help and support from many professors, colleagues, friends, and my family. I wish to o↵er my most heartfelt thanks to all of them here. Ioweanimmensedebtofgratitudetomymainadvisor,DavidWeil,andmythesis committee members, Pedro Dal B´o,Stelios Michalopoulos, and Brian Knight. I am particularly grateful to David. His advice, guidance, support, and mentorship during my years at Brown were crucial for my professional development. David is not only one of the smartest scholars I have ever met but also a great human being. I would certainly be remiss in failing to acknowledge the key role played by Pedro in making my journey at Brown possible. He was not only instrumental in bringing me to Brown University but also in making me feel that my lovely Argentina was actually not that far. With his scientific meticulousness, Pedro also taught me how to think outside the box. Brian and Stelios had nurtured my intellectual development by generously providing their time, invaluable comments, and unwavering guidance. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Oded Galor who was always willing to help. I appreciate the fact that his office door was always open whenever I needed advice. Many thanks also go to Peter Howitt, Vernon Henderson, Ken Chay, Louis Put- terman and Blaise Melly for comments, help, and advice in di↵erent stages of my graduate studies. I thank Juan Carlos Hallak, Daniel Heymann, and Walter Sosa Es- cudero for their invaluable support, help, and mentoring in the transition to my Phd studies at Brown University. I wish to thank Boris Gershman, Alejandro Molnar, Ri- v cardo Perez Truglia, Leandro Gorno, Quamrul Ashraf, Raphael Franck, participants of Macroeconomics Lunch and Macroeconomics Seminar at Brown University, semi- nar participants at Universidad de San Andr´es, NEUDC 2013, Boston-Area Working Group in African Political Economy at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (Harvard University), UNC at Chapel Hill, Notre Dame University, FGV-EPGV (Rio de Janeiro), FGV-EESP (Sao Paulo), ITAM, and Universidad de los Andes for com- ments and helpful discussions on the main chapter of this dissertation. I would also like to thank my friend and fairy godmother, Angelica Vargas, who has been supportive not only in practical matters but also emotionally since the first day I arrived to Providence. Her kindness and hilarious sense of humor is something that I will certainly miss. Several friends made my grad school experience a terrific ride and I thank them for their companionship and fun: Omer¨ Ozak,¨ Judith Gallego, Fede Droller, Flor Borreschio, Ruben Durante, Maya Judd, Sarah Overmyer, Angelica Duran, Jack Sweeney, Diego Diaz, Carla Alberti, Paco Jurado, Chaparro-Martinez family, Martin Fiszbein, Seba Di Tella, Meche Politi, and Perez-Truglia family. I wish to thanks my parents, Juan Manuel and Silvia, not only for their love but also for breeding my passion for learning. I am thankful and grateful to my siblings Nicol´as, Irene, Juli´an, Ana, and Pablo for being always there and for make me laugh. Iamhappyguyandyouareallindeedresponsibleforthat!Thissix-yearsjourney would not have been such a wonderful experience without the arrival of my daughter Violeta. This little person brought immense joy and fulfillment to my life. Violeta, your smile is the most powerful force helping me to push forward! I dedicate this dissertation to my wife Jennifer. All the sacrifices she made along the way to enable the pursuit of my dream are nothing else but the proof of her unconditional love. Jennifer, I will be always deeply indebted to you. Te amo! vi Contents List of Figures x List of Tables xii 1 State History and Contemporary Conflict: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa 1 1.1 Introduction . 1 1.2 Relationship with the Existing Literature . 7 1.3 A New Index of State History at the Sub-national Level. 9 1.3.1 Overview of the Construction Procedure . 9 1.4 Empirical Relationship between State History and Contemporary Con- flict..................................... 17 1.4.1 Sources and Description of Conflict Data . 17 1.4.2 Cross Sectional Evidence . 19 1.4.3 Panel Data Evidence: Weather Induced-Agricultural Produc- tivityShock,StateHistory,andConflict . 43 1.5 Identifying Potential Mechanisms at Work: State History and Atti- tudes Towards State Institutions . 46 1.6 Conclusion . 56 Appendix 1.A: Variable Definitions 75 vii Appendix 1.B: Construction of the Instrument 79 Appendix 1.C: Construction of Weather-Induced Productivity Shock 82 2 Malaria and Early African Development: Evidence from the Sickle Cell Trait 92 2.1 Introduction . 92 2.2 Malaria and Sickle Cell Disease . 97 2.3 Measuring the Historical Burden of Malaria Using Data on the Sickle CellTrait ................................. 101 2.3.1 Measuring the Overall Burden of Malaria . 108 2.3.2 Comparison of Malaria Burden to Malaria Ecology . 111 2.3.3 Comparison of Malaria Burden to Modern Malaria Mortality Rates . 116 2.4 Assessing the Importance of Malaria to Early African Development . 118 2.4.1 EthnicGroupAnalysis . 118 2.5 Model-Based Estimates of the Economic Burden of Malaria . 127 2.5.1 Direct E↵ect of Malaria Mortality . 127 2.5.2 Economic E↵ects of Malaria Morbidity . 140 2.6 Conclusion . 142 3 Fear of Obama: An Empirical Study of the Demand for Guns and the U.S. 2008 Presidential Election 150 3.1 Introduction . 150 3.2 Data and Aggregated Empirical Evidence on Gun Sales . 157 3.2.1 A Proxy of the Demand for Guns . 157 3.2.2 A Descriptive Analysis of the Aggregated Evolution of Gun Sales159 3.3 Empirical Strategy and Results . 163 viii 3.3.1 Quantifying the Obama e↵ect . 163 3.3.2 Potential Mechanisms . 170 3.3.3 Robustness Check . 181 3.4 Conclusions . 186 Appendix 3.A: Additional Tables 198 Bibliography 202 ix List of Figures 1.1 Evolution of Historical Map Boundaries (1000 - 1850 CE) . 10 1.2 Example of Score Calculation. East Africa (1800 - 1850 CE) . 12 1.3 SpatialDistributionofStateHistoryIndex . 14 1.4 ConflictandStateHistory . 25 1.5 Sensitivity of Estimates to Exclusion of Countries . 31 1.6 TimeElapsedSinceNeolithicRevolution . 36 1.7 AlternativeMeasureUsingHistoricalCities . 42 2.1 Sickle Cell Gene Frequency from Piel et al (2010) . 101 2.2 E↵ect of a Hypothetical Malaria Eradication on Evolution of Carriers 106 2.3 Implications of Varying Sickle Cell Prevalence for Malaria Burden . 110 2.4 Worldwide Distribution of Malaria Ecology . 112 2.5 MalariaEcologyinAfrica . 113 2.6 Population Density by Ethnic Groups from EA (1967) . 120 2.7 Consumption and Income Profiles . 132 2.8 Change in Survival Probabilities due to Malaria . 136 3.1 Presidential Elections and Firearm Background Check Reports . 161 3.2 Growth in Background Checks by State (July08-June09 vs July07- June08) .................................. 162 x 3.3 Geographic Distribution Obama Victory E↵ect . 170 3.4 Change in Attitudes Toward Gun Control. More important to Protect Gun Rights or Control Gun Ownership? . 172 xi List of Tables 1.1 Summary Statistics. Grid Cell Sample . 58 1.2 OLS Estimates - Baseline Specification . 59 1.3 OLS Estimates - Accounting for Genetic and Ecological Diversity . 60 1.4 OLSEstimates-AdditionalControls . 61 1.5 OLS Estimates. Di↵erentConflictMeasures . 62 1.6 OLSEstimates. HeterogeneityAcrossRegions . 63 1.7 OLS Estimates. Discount Factors and Importance of Medieval Period 64 1.8 OLS Estimates - Intensive vs Extensive Margin of Political Centralization 65 1.9 First-Stage. NeolithicInstrument . 66 1.10 IV Estimates . 67 1.11 Alternative Measure. Historical Proximity to Cities . 68 1.12 Conflict, State History, and Weather Shocks -Panel Data Evidence (1989-2010)- . 69 1.13 Conflict, State History, and Weather Shocks -Panel Data Evidence (1989-2010)- . 70 1.14 StateLegitimacyandStateHistory . 71 1.15 State Legitimacy and State History.
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