Using cross-country differences in the degree of isolation before the advent of technologies in sea and air transportation, we assess the relationship between geographical isolation and financial development across the globe. We find that prehistoric geographical isolation has been beneficial to development because it has contributed to contemporary cross-country differences in financial intermediary development. The relationship is robust to alternative samples, different estimation techniques, outliers and varying conditioning information sets. The established positive relationship between geographical isolation and financial intermediary development does not significantly extend to stock market development.

中文翻译：

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金融发展和史前地理隔离：全球证据

利用海运和空运技术出现之前各国隔离程度的差异，我们评估了地理隔离与全球金融发展之间的关系。我们发现史前的地理隔离对发展是有利的，因为它促成了当代金融中介发展的跨国差异。这种关系对于替代样本、不同的估计技术、异常值和变化的条件信息集是稳健的。地理隔离与金融中介发展之间建立的正相关关系并没有显着延伸到股票市场的发展。