Lecture 9 - The Shadow of Geography Flashcards
Geography and economic development
- Access to river and coasts
- Land Quality or characteristics
- Absence of specific disease ecologies
Access to rivers and coasts
Correlation
Land locked countries have lower GDP per capita
How to measure and quality and what is correlation
- measure of land quality abstracting from unobserved instituional differences
- if you regress population density on elevation, ruggedness, malaria, transmission, distance to coast, nevigable river, major lake, natural harbor, latitude, longitude, argicultural suitability, and then generate predicted values, you will get a single measure that aggregates all the other variables together. since all these variables are geographic or climatic, that is essentially going to be an indicator of land quality
positive correlation bewteen land quality and GDP per capita
Natural resources
Coal
- Allen (2009): cheap coal was important for Industrial Revolution
- closer to coal fields, the price of coal would be cheaper so factories that used steam engines started to be used more
- coal on its own was unlikely to be decisive however its availability as a cheap energy source did matter- when paired with technological progress rhere was an impact
- After 1750 population of those less than 25km away from coal fields started growing more contributing to economic development
Malaria and disease environment
- geography and climate also matter becasue they determine the disease environment
- mmalaria has killed more humans than any other disease in history
- countries in the malaria belt grow more slowly (Gallup and Sachs, 2001) because it impeds historical development by reducing population density and delaying state formation
Bad Geography in Africa
Correlation
The more rugged the country was the better GDP per capita (wealthier in Africa) because it offered protection to those being raided during Africa’s slave trade (Nunn and Puga, 2012)
Out of Africa Hypothesis
Out of Africa Hypothesis and population density
Ashraf and Galor (2013) argue that exodus of anatomically modern humans (Homo Sapiens) out of Africa 60,000-90,000 BCE affected population diversity across the globe, and as a result comparative economic development and inequality in the wealth in nations
Serial founder effect
With out of Africa migrations, departing populations carried a subset of the traits, and therefore diversity, of their home regions
Because migration was sequential: populations at greater migratory distance from East Africa should be less diverse (more homogenous)
Measuring population density
Expected heterozygosity: probability that two individuals, selected at random from a given population are different in a spectrum of traits
Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP)
Migraotry distance from East Africca and population diversity
Negative correlation between migratory distance from East Africa and:
* genetic diversity
* number of ethnic groups
* ethnic fractionalisation
* religious fractionalisation
* linguistic fractionalisation
Captures phnotypic- cultural, behavioural and linguistic- diversity
correlated with fractionalisation meaures
Conflicting effects of diversity
Ashraf and Galor (2013): diversity has beneficial effects for creativity and innovations but adverse effects on social cohesiveness/ conflict
Widens the spectrum of individual values, beliefs, and preferences hence diminishes interpersonal trust, erodes socio-political cohesion and increases the incidence of civil conflicts
Population diversity and economic development
- Humped shaped relationship between diversity and development
- diversity should be beneficial in a rapidly changing technological environment- because it generates more ideas and innovations
Population diversity and economic development
Graph - Hump shaped
- average population density is good for development
What are the empirical challenges and what is the solution
- population diversity may be endogenous to development
- population diversity is only observed for 53 to 207 ethnic groups
- Adjustment of population diversity for migration in post-1500 period
Solution: using predicted diversity based on migratory distance from East Africa (instrumental variable analysis)
population diversity and economic developement
- the optimal level of diversity had continuously increased in the course of human history, reflecting the increased importance of innovations in the process of development
- policy complications:importance of education and institutions
