Geography, landownership inequality, and literacy: historical evidence from Greek regions

Abstract

Our work sheds light on the joint role of human capital and geography during the early stages of the transition from stagnation to growth in early twentieth century Greece. We uncover a robust association between geography and literacy. We also show that geography is correlated with land inequality and thus establish that land distribution is a channel through which geography influences literacy. Finally, the impact of geography on human capital formation weakens with industrialization. Our work contributes to the literature on geography and human capital in the transition from stagnation to growth since Greece was at the early stages of the industrial era during the study period.