Showing results 1 - 10 of 26
April 5, 2021, Paper: "We consider the effects of climate change on seasonally migrant populations that herd livestock – i.e., transhumant pastoralists – in Africa. Traditionally, transhumant pastoralists benefit from a cooperative relationship with sedentary agriculturalists whereby arable land is used for crop farming in the wet season and animal grazing in the dry season. Droughts can disrupt this arrangement by inducing pastoral groups to…
July 28, 2020, Video, "Nathan Nunn’s work history includes automotive stores, a freight company, a paint factory, a ski hill, photography, book publishing, private tutoring, and more. Having grown up in a lower-income Canadian family, he recognizes the importance of having multiple pathways to climb the socioeconomic ladder. Now, as a development economist at Harvard, his research investigates how things like history, culture and contract…
The historical roots of economic development. Nathan Nunn, March 22, 2020, Paper, "Methodological innovations are enabling scientists to study how events in the distant past affect contemporary life. Nunn reviews recent research at the intersection of history, development, and culture that aims to understand the cultural evolution of economic development. The persistence of global inequality is used as a case study to demonstrate the interplay…
Innis Lecture - Rethinking Economic Development. Nathan Nunn, August 28, 2019, Paper, "I provide a summary, reflection, and assessment of the current state of economic development in both the policy and academic worlds. In terms of development policy, currently, the primary focus is on policy interventions, namely, foreign aid, aimed at fixing the ‘deficiencies’ of developing countries. Academic research also has a similar focus, except with an…
The curiously varied impact of recessions on political stability: New evidence. Nathan Nunn, September 29, 2018, "Cultural values and beliefs have an impact on social and economic development, but the interplay between culture and political institutions is still not well understood. This column examines the effect of trust on political stability in democratic and non-democratic regimes, specifically in the face of severe economic downturns. It…
Immigrants and the Making of America. Nathan Nunn, September 13, 2018, Paper, "We study the effects of European immigration to the United States during the Age of Mass Migration (1850–1920) on economic prosperity. Exploit cross-county variation in immigration arising from the interaction of fluctuations in aggregate immigrant flows and the gradual expansion of the railway network, we find that counties with more historical immigration have…
Understanding the long-run effects of Africa’s slave trades. Nathan Nunn, February 27, 2017, Paper, "Evidence suggests that Africa's slave trades played an important part in the shaping of the continent not only in terms of economic outcomes, but cultural and social outcomes as well. This column, taken from a recently published VoxEU eBook, summarises studies that reveal the lasting toxic effects of Africa’s four waves of slave trades on…
2015, Video, "Economics from a Historical Perspective(Nathan Nunn(Harvard University, Professor of Economics)): Economist Nathan Nunn will discuss the role that history plays in understanding contemporary economic prosperity. He will provide an overview of an emerging body of research that empirically examines how key historic events have shaped the course of human history. A particular emphasis will be placed on research that seeks to better…
| James Robinson | Robert H. Bates
Africa's Development in Historical Perspective. Robert H. Bates, Nathan Nunn, James Robinson, August 2014, Book. "This edited volume addresses the root causes of Africa's persistent poverty through an investigation of its longue durée history. It interrogates the African past through disease and demography, institutions and governance, African economies and the impact of the export slave trade, colonialism, Africa in the world economy, and…
The Economics of Fair Trade, Nathan Nunn, Summer 2014, Paper. "Fair Trade is a labeling initiative aimed at improving the lives of the poor in developing countries by offering better terms to producers and helping them to organize. Whether Fair Trade can achieve its intended goals has been hotly debated in academic and policy circles. In particular, debates have been waged about whether Fair Trade makes "economic sense" and is sustainable in the…