| Abstract: |
This research theoretically and empirically advances the hypothesis that in
early stages of development, land and climatic variability had a persistent
beneficial effect on the advent of early statehood. A high degree of land and
climatic diversity, and its association with potential gains from trade,
accentuated the incentives to develop social, political and physical
infrastructure that could facilitate interregional interaction. Hence, the
emergence of states was expedited in more diverse geographical environments.
To explore the hypotheses the analysis exploits exogenous sources of variation
in a) the measure of land variability across countries, and b) climatic
variability within countries over the period 500-1500 CE. The research
establishes that i) the advent of statehood was expedited in regions
characterized by a higher degree of variability in land and climatic
conditions, ii) the effect of (land and climatic) variability on statehood
operates partly through the advancement of technologies associated with trade,
thus suggesting that it is the pivotal role of states in facilitating trade
that ultimately contributed to their emergence and consolidation, and, iii)
the effect of land variability on statehood dissipates over time, |