Publications




Working Papers

Songlines (with Aldo Elizalde and Yannis M. Ioannides)

This paper examines the long-term economic impacts of the adoption of local knowledge during European colonisation. We use the case of Australia, where Aboriginal knowledge of the landscape was integral to colonial exploration and settlement. To quantify the effects of this knowledge, we construct a newly digitised and georeferenced dataset of trade routes created by Aboriginal people based on oral traditions, known as Songlines. Our results indicate that Aboriginal trade routes are strongly associated with current economic activity as measured by nighttime satellite imagery. We attribute this association to path dependence and agglomeration effects that emanate from the transport infrastructure built by Europeans roughly along these routes, which have agglomerated economic activity. Finally, by exploiting exogenous variation in optimal travel routes, we provide evidence that our results are not entirely determined by the inherent characteristics of Australian topography, but rather by Aboriginal knowledge.


Violence and Ethnic Identity (with Aldo Elizalde and Eduardo Hidalgo)

This paper examines the consequences of violence on ethnic identity. To explore this, we use the Shining Path conflict in Peru as a natural experiment. The Shining Path insurgency was one of the most violent in 20th-century Latin America, resulting in over 70,000 deaths and extensive atrocities, including torture, rape, and mass displacement. The insurgency arose from an extremist revolutionary ideology in rural areas that demanded class identity over any other identity affiliation, causing Indigenous populations to bear 75% of the victims. Leveraging individual-level ethnic identity data and violent event-level data from 1958 to 1992, we implement a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits quasi-random variation in exposure to violence across individuals at different stages of their ethnic identity formation. Our findings indicate that individuals exposed to violent conflict during their crucial formative years of ethnic identity are significantly less likely to identify as Indigenous or to speak an Indigenous language as their mother tongue compared to those whose ethnic identity has been largely established. We attribute these results to own-ethnic group violence, which weakens incentives to maintain Indigenous identity.


Plant Cultural Infrastructure and Harvest Urban Growth (with Yannis M. Ioannides)

This paper examines the impact of cultural infrastructure on urban growth during the Hellenistic period (323 BCE–31 BCE). We study the policies of Alexander the Great and his successors, who established gymnasia, theatres, and libraries across the Eastern Mediterranean in a quasi-random manner to unite populations under a shared Greek cultural identity. Using a differences-in-differences approach, we compare populated areas that hosted such projects with those that did not. Our results show that areas with at least one cultural project experienced sustained urban growth, averaging 30.1% more urban infrastructure, with growth driven mainly by culture-related projects such as temples rather than public works like roads. We further show that these areas were more likely to be the birthplaces of prominent individuals, suggesting a channel of development through human capital formation. Overall, the findings highlight the significant role of cultural infrastructure in fostering urban economic growth during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods.