LATE for History

TL;DR

This paper examines how allowing for heterogeneous treatment effects influences historical persistence studies in economics, providing models and strategies to better interpret causal relationships over time.

Contribution

It introduces minimal abstract models and discusses empirical strategies for analyzing heterogeneous effects in historical persistence studies.

Findings

Heterogeneous treatment effects are likely in historical persistence analyses.

Models help interpret the mechanisms behind observed effects.

Guidelines for empirical strategies to uncover causal mechanisms.

Abstract

In Historical Economics, Persistence studies document the persistence of some historical phenomenon or leverage this persistence to identify causal relationships of interest in the present. In this chapter, we analyze the implications of allowing for heterogeneous treatment effects in these studies. We delineate their common empirical structure, argue that heterogeneous treatment effects are likely in their context, and propose minimal abstract models that help interpret results and guide the development of empirical strategies to uncover the mechanisms generating the effects.