Lecture 13 and 14 - Geography as a fundamental cause of growth

Question 1

What features does a country need in order to grow?

Answer 1

A country will only grow if it has the appropriate physical, ecological and geographical characteristics

Question 2

What is the general argument around tropical climates and economic growth?

Answer 2

The general argument is that a tropical climate is a barrier to growth. It decreases productivity then reducing K and H accumulation

Question 3

What is the general productivity in agriculture of tropical countries?

Answer 3

Productivity in agriculture is well known to be lower at the tropics

Question 4

Why is the productivity in agriculture lower at the tropics?

Answer 4

• Tropical soils are more fragile and poorer in nutrients
• Water availability is more discontinuous and irrigation is more costly
• The hot climate at the tropics favours the prevalence of pests and parasites
• Temperate agricultural technologies are often not suitable for tropical zones

Question 5

How does poor health affect a country’s ability to grow?

Answer 5

• Poor health reduces productive effort as a result of lost workdays and reduced physical and cognitive ability
• Poor health makes it less attractive for people to invest in improving technology (A) and in accumulating physical and human capital (K and H)

Question 6

What is one of the biggest poor health factors affecting a country’s growth?

Answer 6

• The prevalence of tropical diseases affects a country’s ability to grow
• A lot of them do not have vaccines such as malaria

Question 7

What parts of a country does malaria affect that affects its ability to grow?

Answer 7

Malaria affects:
- Productivity of adults
- Productivity for kids: school attendance and test scores
- High child mortality

Question 8

Has malaria increased or decreased in recent years?

Answer 8

Malaria has greatly decreased in recent years with lots of evidence from districts in Tanzania to suggest this

Question 9

What argument was used to answer the question: “How did a small number of small states expand their dominance all over the world for 4 centuries?”

Answer 9

Sachs (2001) used the theory of the tropical curse to answer this question

Question 10

Explain the 2 components of Sachs’ (2001) Geography argument of the tropical curse

Answer 10

Sachs’ (2001) tropical curse geography argument had two components:
1- The inherent tropical curse: Geography matters for growth, tropical climate is intrinsically bad for growth as they are prone to diseases
2- The historical topical curse: Geography mattered for growth in the last few centuries especially because the Europeans took advantage of their superior geography to dominate the rest of the world and keep it in poverty

Question 11

Explain whether there is actually an inherent tropical curse or not in terms of agricultural yields and health

Answer 11

Agricultural yields:
- Agricultural yields have greatly increased over time, also in tropical regions
- Sub-Saharan countries have the lowest agricultural yields because of their low technology uptake, low use of more productive seeds, low labour productivity and low protection of property rights
Health:
- Malaria harms education and productivity and it can be eradicated but it isn’t as spraying houses with kids with DDT may not be acceptable now and eradication of malaria did not succeed everywhere

Question 12

Briefly explain the events of the Spanish conquest

Answer 12

• Pizzaro had an army of 168, was in unfamiliar terrain and was thousands of miles away from the closest Spanish reinforcements
• Atahualpa was in the middle of his empire of millions of subjects and was surrounded by an army of 80000
• Still within a few minutes, Pizarro defeated the Incas and captured and killed Atahualpa
• Over the next few years the new Spanish king established control over the entire Inca empire

Question 13

Explain how Pizarro was able to conquer Peru and kill Atahualpa against the odds

Answer 13

• A famous book by Jared Diamond argues that this was because of guns, germs and steel
• It was the Spaniards who had steel and the ships and weapons that could be built with it, in particular guns and horses.
• The Spaniards had their germs to which they were largely immune but that took a heavy toll on the native americans

Question 14

Explain Jared Diamond’s argument for why the Spanish had superior technology during their conquest and why others didn’t

Answer 14

There was European technological advancement in the 1500s as:
- Europe had colonised the rest of the world
- Europe kept the rest of the world in poverty
- Europe’s geography favoured resistance to illness, it favoured agricultural productivity and it favoured technological exchange (weapons)

Question 15

Explain how Geography was crucial for the expansion of the west

Answer 15

Geography was crucial for the expansion of the west as:
- Eurasians were more exposed to illness
- Eurasia had far more plants and animals to domesticate
- Eurasia’s geography facilitates the exchange of plants, animals and diseases

Question 16

Explain how Eurasia’s geography made it suitable for the exchange of goods and services and how this led to Eurasia having steel and guns

Answer 16

• Eurasia was the only continent to have a East-West orientation
• This means this is the only variation where the orientation allows for easy cross-adaptation of crops
• In contrast, the spread of crops is more difficult in the North-South axis
• The increased food availability led to the emergence of cities in Eurasia
• In cities people became able to work metals and created various kinds of manufactures. They also invented writing. and built increasingly sophisticated political systems
• By 1500 AD this led to Eurasia to have steel and guns

Question 17

Give an overview of Sachs’ (2001) and Diamond’s (2005) arguments

Answer 17

• Richer countries tend to be concentrated in temperate zones
• Sachs argues that this is due to low agricultural productivity and poor health at the tropics whereas Diamond argues that this is due to environmental conditions 10000 years ago