O'Grady Trevor, Tagliapietra Claudio
The College of New Jersey, United States<!-<query>The country name has been inserted for all the affiliations. Please check, and correct if necessary.</query>->.
University of Bologna, Italy.
Econ Hum Biol. 2017 Nov;27(Pt A):137-153. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2017.05.008. Epub 2017 Jun 6.
In the late 18th century hundreds self-governing alpine communities in Northern Italy came under the direct control of centralized states (Austria and France) at different times. We exploit the timing and location of these interventions in a DD type design to investigate the effects of removing CPR institutions on biological welfare. We find a significant and persistent increase in infant mortality rates and a more modest decrease in birth rates as a result of state centralization. We provide evidence that these demographic changes reflect a critical loss of natural resource income caused by the disruption of communal institutions. Impacts are most severe in communities that have no prior experience with formal institutions.
