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now let's consider a very deep question in development economics
mainly
how persistent or the forces which a prosperity
in other words if your country is prosperous today does the supplier
country was probably prosperous also hundreds of years ago
you can think of this investigation is looking more closely at the role of
geography in economic development
and also updating some of the results found in jared diamond's
guns germs and steel
of course look at alex is video on that book
i'll be drawn a good deal on this excellent paper
available online i recommend you go to the source and read the whole thing
one thing those offers do is they take one measure of current prosperity
namely the lobby of two thousand five per capita income
and they're going to ask what predicts that measure of prosperity
as explanatory variables they use some important geographic features mainly
absolute latitude or distance from the equator percentage of the land area in
the tropics other country whether that country is landlocked and also whether
that country is an audit and
if you take those together in a well specified model of economic growth
the geographic factors
what appeared to explain about forty four percent of the contemporary
variation in the lobby of per-capita income
another words geography really does matter
and uh... both variables absolute latitude matters the most
there's another interesting paper by all sending kids
cited here they make some changes in the analysis
they exclude countries settled by recent migrants
for instance that would include say in new zealand
and they find that geography then explains about fifty five percent
of current prosperity even more
if we look only at the old world
geography then would appear to explain about sixty four percent
of the variation in current prosperity
direct these papers and general we're finding that geography explains more
than biology
so for instance if you consider jared diamond's argument that the importance
of domestic ball animals for subsequent economic growth
that seems to matter less than
where our country or region is located
econometrica success in earlier times is population density and we're going to
look at population density in the year fifteen hundred as a measure of success
white population density
well for one thing it may be easier to measure than real wages but also
consider in earlier times the world may have been in some kind of
now losing an ecuadorian
that is if a country or region was doing well that would mean that more people
would exist but it wouldn't necessarily mean
higher real wages
so for looking at population density in the year fifteen hundred is very
important predictor of that
is a variable called years since agricultural transition namely how long
ago did that region make the transition to regular settled agriculture
another way of putting this is that having had a head start many years
earlier
still seems to be making a difference
another predictor of early economic development mainly population density in
the year fifteen hundred is a variable called state history
for how long has the region had a history of a well-developed centralized
state
what's pictured here by the way if the salisbury cathedral in england
which is home to one of the original copies of the magna carta
another important paper in this literature is by common easterly and
gone
and they asked the question in their title was the wealth of nations
determined in one thousand bc
they find some fairly startling results one is that technology adoption in the
year fifteen hundred
predicts prosperity today and the level of technology today fairly well
they find even that technology adoption in the year
one thousand bc
has some explanatory power for technology and technology adoption and
prosperity today
this is again suggesting that the idea of a head start really matters
the papers in this literature also find that
what matters most is not the current geography of a country but rather the
geography of the country where the settlers came from for instance pictured
here is new zealand
a lot of the settlers of new zealand came from england
but predicts the economic prosperity of new zealand
is not necessarily the
current geography of new zealand
but rather the older geography of
the settlers of new zealand mainly the english
this is again reflecting the theme of the distant past really matter
these results are all intriguing but it's much harder to know what to make of
them
in particular which forces channel these early effects
does it have to do fundamentally with culture
for instance wants a nation or region has a successful culture
the success may have some matter
perpetuate itself over time
that tends to be my preferred explanation
other writers have considered the possible role of genetics in creating
persistence and prosperity over time
we may end up considering that an entirely separate video
could it be some other factor for instance if your region was doing well
early on
that gave you a source of political advantage which then perhaps
was used to take resources from others
which would both help you
and to some extent keep them down
maybe so but in any case this all the way too much further investigation
just to repeat archaea reading here
it's an article called how deep are the roots of economic development
in addition to the other pieces mentioned
i'd also recommend chandan other men
early starts reversals and catch up
in the process uh... economic development