UC Riverside

Chapter 1 explores the long-run effects of inequality within Brazil. I exploit variation in the climate to instrument for the local distribution of land in 1920 in a two-stage least squares instrumental variables framework. My instrument is an index quantifying the suitability of the climate for plantation versus smallholder agriculture. IV estimates show that higher levels of historical land inequality are associated with lower local public welfare spending, both historically (in 1923) and in recent times (from 1995-2005). Historical inequality is also associated with lower levels of development, as measured by the local Human Development Index. In Chapter 2 I show that the construction of Afghanistan’s largest modern infrastructure project, a two thousand mile highway known as the A1 or Ring Road, led to a surge in opium production within the country over the past decade. I first exploit spatial and temporal variation in district-level poppy cultivation and proximity to the road to show that districts with better access to the highway witnessed a significant increase in cultivation. I then utilize three rounds of the large-scale National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Survey to show that improved access to the highway led Afghan farmers to substitute away from legal crops towards illicit opium production. In Chapter 3 I analyze local economic growth within Brazil over the 1920 to 1996 time period. I first find that local per capita economic growth displays unconditional divergence, in that localities which were relatively richer in 1920 grew faster over 20th century. Disaggregating local GDP into its agriculture, industry, and services components reveals long-run divergence to be present in all three sectors of the economy. After conditioning growth on a comprehensive set of controls, including those for geography, inequality, and human capital, I find no evidence that localities have converged in their long-run growth rates.