This dissertation explores the historical determinants of comparative economic development. The first chapter examines theoretically and empirically the economic origins of ethnic and linguistic diversity. The empirical analysis constructs detailed data on the distribution of land quality across regions and countries, and shows that variation in land quality has contributed significantly to the emergence and persistence of ethnic diversity. The evidence supports the theory, according to which heterogeneous land endowments generated region specific human capital, limiting population mobility and leading to the formation of localized ethnicities and languages. The research contributes to the understanding of the emergence of ethnicities and their spatial distribution and offers a distinction between the natural, geographically driven, versus the artificial, man-made, components of contemporary ethnic diversity. A first application of this approach casts some doubt on the influential findings that ethnic diversity has significant adverse effects on economic outcomes.

The second chapter investigates the interaction between the evolution of entrepreneurial spirit and economic development. It suggests that the evolution of entrepreneurial spirit played a significant role in the process of economic development and the dynamics of inequality within and across societies. The study argues that in early stages of development, the rise in income generated an evolutionary advantage to entrepreneurial, growth promoting traits and their increased representation accelerated the pace of technological progress and the process of economic development. Natural selection therefore had magnified growth promoting activities in relatively wealthier economies as well as within the upper segments of societies. In mature stages of development, however, non-entrepreneurial individuals gained an evolutionary advantage, diminishing the growth potential of advanced economies and contributing to the convergence of the intermediate level economies to the advanced ones.

The last essay examines the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture shedding new light on the origins of the Neolithic Revolution. It focuses on the interaction between climatic sequences and technological progress, and suggests that differences in regional climatic sequences after the Last Glacial Maximum resulted in the differential timing of the transition to agriculture contributing to the observed contemporary divergence in income per-capita across countries.