Table 8.

The Causal Effect of the Neolithic Revolution on Technological Sophistication

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)
	OLS	OLS	IV	OLS	OLS	IV
	Full Sample	Restricted Sample	Restricted Sample	Full Sample	Restricted Sample	Restricted Sample
	Dependent Variable is Log Non-Agricultural Technology in:
	1000 CE			1 CE
Log Years since Neolithic Transition	0.115*** (0.024)	0.146*** (0.030)	0.279*** (0.073)	0.152*** (0.027)	0.174*** (0.029)	0.339*** (0.074)
Log Land Productivity	−0.006 (0.008)	−0.012 (0.015)	−0.009 (0.014)	−0.024*** (0.008)	−0.027* (0.016)	−0.023 (0.019)
Log Absolute Latitude	0.012 (0.014)	0.000 (0.019)	0.005 (0.018)	0.039** (0.016)	0.026 (0.022)	0.032 (0.020)
Mean Distance to Nearest Coast or River	0.008 (0.033)	0.117** (0.053)	0.129** (0.051)	0.007 (0.035)	0.050 (0.084)	0.066 (0.078)
Percentage of Land within 100 km of Coast or River	0.024 (0.038)	0.080 (0.052)	0.112* (0.058)	0.047 (0.048)	0.110 (0.070)	0.149** (0.076)
Continent Dummies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	143	93	93	143	93	93
R-squared	0.76	0.72	0.67	0.59	0.55	0.47
First-stage F-statistic	–	–	13.47	–	–	13.47
Overid. p-value	–	–	0.256	–	–	0.166

Summary – This table presents the causal effect of the timing of the Neolithic Revolution on the level of technology in non-agricultural sectors in the years 1000 CE and 1 CE, while controlling for land productivity, access to navigable waterways, absolute latitude, and unobserved continental fixed effects.

Notes – (i) unlike the regular technology index, the index of non-agricultural technology for a given time period reflects the average degree of technological sophistication across only communications, transportation, and industrial sectors in that period; (ii) log land productivity is the first principal component of the log of the percentage of arable land and the log of an agricultural suitability index; (iii) the IV regressions employ the numbers of prehistoric domesticable species of plants and animals as instruments for log transition timing; (iv) the statistic for the first-stage F-test of these instruments is significant at the 1 percent level; (v) the p-values for the overidentifying restrictions tests correspond to Hansen’s J statistic, distributed in both instances as chi-square with one degree of freedom; (vi) a single continent dummy is used to represent the Americas, which is natural given the historical period examined; (vii) regressions (2)–(3) and (5)–(6) do not employ the Oceania dummy due to a single observation for this continent in the IV data-restricted sample; (viii) robust standard error estimates are reported in parentheses; (ix) *** denotes statistical significance at the 1 percent level, ** at the 5 percent level, and * at the 10 percent level, all for two-sided hypothesis tests.