Research Interests

My research interests lie at the intersection of economic history, development and growth. My projects generally rely on the use of historical events and historical data to investigate questions in the areas of economic development and growth. My current research projects are a perfect illustration of this principle. My job market paper estimates the impact of a historical event on contemporary economic activity. A second paper analyzes modern gender inequality using a historical event as a source of exogenous variation in gender roles. My third paper analyzes the impact of HIV/AIDS on economic growth in Africa. In addition, I have several other research projects at various stages. In what follows I will describe these papers in more detail (click on the titles) and outline my future research agenda. 

 

Publications

The Heavy Plow and the Agricultural Revolution in Medieval Europe. (Job Market Paper)

Journal of Development Economics (2015), forthcoming

With Thomas Barnebeck Andersen & Peter Sandholt Jensen.

 

Modern Gender Roles and Agricultural History: the Neolithic Inheritance

Journal of Economic Growth (2015), forthcoming

With Casper Worm Hansen & Peter Sandholt Jensen.

 

Working Papers

Does HIV/AIDS Matter for Economic Growth in sub-Saharan Africa?

UNU WIDER Working Paper Series (2015)

With Tine Lesner & Anthony Mveyange.

 

Work in Progress

The Creation of a Land ‘of Milk and Butter’: Traditional Elites and the Long Run Determinants of Economic Take-off in Denmark
With Peter Sandholt Jensen, Markus Lampe & Paul Sharp.

 

Migration, Vitamin D Deficiency, and Life Expectancy
With Thomas Barnebeck Andersen, Carl Johan Dalgaard & Pablo Selaya.

 

 

Paper descriptions

My job market paper, “The Heavy Plow and the European Agricultural Revolution in the Middle Ages” investigates the impact of a new agricultural technology in the Middle Ages – the heavy plow – on contemporary economic development. To identify this effect we use a difference-in-differences setup with the breakthrough as the time variation and regional suitability for the new plow as cross-sectional variation. Using Geographical Information Software (GIS) we extract present-day geographical data on soil and crop suitability and show that these are strongly correlated with their historical counterparts. We find that the plow explains a significant share of the new towns founded in the period from just before the breakthrough until we end our window of observation in AD 1300. For the case study of Denmark the heavy plow explains more than 40% of the newly established towns and for Europe as a whole it explains more than 15%. The paper is co-authored with Thomas Barnebeck Andersen and Peter Sandholt Jensen from the University of Southern Denmark and has been accepted by the Journal of Development Economics.  

 

My paper on “Modern Gender Roles and Agricultural History: the Neolithic Inheritance” investigates the impact of agriculture on present-day gender roles using the timing of the Neolithic revolution as a source of exogenous variation. In three different samples – a world sample, a regional European sample, and an individual US immigrant sample - we find that (people coming from) countries with a longer agricultural history have lower female labor force participation. We also find that these countries are less gender equal in a number of alternative measures of gender equality. Our results are robust to an extensive number of tests including an IV model using the prehistorical distribution of domesticable animals and plants as instruments for the timing of the Neolithic revolution. To explain our findings we argue that (i) societies with longer agricultural histories had a higher level of technological advancement which in the Malthusian Epoch translated into higher fertility and a diminished role for women outside the home and (ii) the transition to cereal agriculture led to a division of labor in which women spent more time on processing cereals rather than working in the field. The paper is co-authored with Casper Worm Hansen from Copenhagen University and Peter Sandholt Jensen from the University of Southern Denmark and has been accepted by the Journal of Economic Growth.

 

My working paper “Does HIV/AIDS Matter for Economic Growth in sub-Saharan Africa?” investigates the impact of HIV on economic growth in the period 2003-2012. To identify this effect we use two instruments motivated by the medical literature: ‘male circumcision share’ and ‘distance to the first outbreak’. We use GIS to calculate regional HIV prevalence rates from Demographic Household Surveys based on actual blood tests. Growth rates are proxied by changes in night lights from NASA satellites and travel times to the first outbreak are calculated using a cost surface in GIS based on various means of transportation. Surprisingly, we find no significant effects of HIV on overall economic performance. In the paper we discuss potential explanations for this finding. The paper is co-authored with two graduate students at the University of Southern Denmark: Tine Lesner and Anthony Mveyange. The paper can be downloaded from the UNU WIDER Working Paper series

 

The paper on the "Creation of a Land ‘of Milk and Butter" investigates how and why cooperative creameries came to dominate agriculture so rapidly in Denmark after 1882. We explain this through the long-run persistence of the spread of an earlier agricultural system with proto-modern dairying from the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein to traditional landed estates more than a century earlier. The location of cooperative creameries in 1890 is closely associated with the location of these so-called hollænderier, after controlling for other relevant determinants of cooperation. Supported by contemporary sources, we interpret this as evidence for a gradual spread of ideas from the estates to the peasantry.

 

Future research agenda

I believe that it is of paramount importance for future development and growth to understand why countries differ in economic terms today, as well as how historical events have shaped the world of today. Therefore, I plan to keep working at the intersection of economic development, growth, and economic history. In addition, in all my projects so far I have relied on GIS information to identify sources of exogenous variation that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. I find GIS to be a very powerful tool and I will use it also in my future research. I aim at publishing in top field journals and ultimately to reach top general journals. I hope to push the research frontier and to contribute to important debates.