族群文化差异与经济发展——基于基因和姓氏的实证研究

Ethnic Cultural Differences and Development: Evidence from Genes and Surnames

本文利用我国省际经济数据,考察了省际族群文化差异对经济发展的影响。研究发现,在控制了一系列可能影响经济发展的因素(如投资率、人力资本等)后,以DNA和姓氏基因距离度量的族群文化差异对当前地区间经济发展差异有较强的解释力,即两省之间的族群文化差异越大,人均GDP的差异也将随之增大。以明代姓氏基因距离作为当前文化差异的工具变量,两阶段回归肯定了文化差异对地区经济发展差异的因果作用。最后,机制分析表明:族群文化差异对以市场化指数衡量的制度差异有显著影响,并且对省际贸易有着阻碍作用;制度和贸易途径被证明是族群文化差异导致区域经济发展差异的重要原因。

This paper studies the role of cultural differences among regional ethnic groups in regional economic disparities in China.We find the ethnic cultural differences,measured by the genetic distances of DNA and surnames,have significant effects on contemporary economic disparity after controlling for a series of variables correlated with economic growth(like investment ratio,human capital).If the ethnic cultural difference between two provinces becomes larger,the difference in GDP per capita will increase significantly.Besides,this result is robust when the cultural difference in Ming Dynasty(measured by the genetic distance of surnames)is used as the instrument variable of the contemporary cultural difference.We also find institution and trade are two important channels through which the ethnic cultural differences affect economic development.