Research

Abstract
This paper advances and empirically substantiates a new perspective on state formation: the spatial fragmentation of agricultural calendars served as a fundamental barrier to state-building throughout the pre-industrial era. Spatially asynchronous agricultural calendars mandated a fragmented productive system that could not be easily taxed and harnessed by centralised governments. I build and validate an index of growing period heterogeneity capturing the spatio-temporal dispersion of farming activity. Multiple empirical exercises show that heterogeneous agricultural growing seasons were a crucial barrier to state-building worldwide over the last millennium. Additional analyses on 19th century China, India and Russia shed light on the precise mechanisms through which growing period heterogeneity hindered state-building: it decreased taxation and military mobilisation levels across the three polities.

Abstract
This paper explores the agrarian origins of social capital and collectivism using Italy as a case study. The country displays striking socio-economic and cultural differences within its territory. To a largely inward-looking and mistrusting South is opposed the more dynamic civil society of the central and northern portions of the country. This study empirically substantiates a relatively new perspective on the uneven distribution of social capital across the Italian peninsula. Comparing geographically-close communes sharing the same institutional background, we show that historical reliance on sharecropping is associated to more voluntary associations today. Preliminary evidence suggests that the prosocial legacy of sharecropping is explained by the collectivistic traits inherent in its interdependent division of labour.