Why Eurasia? Flashcards
Olsson and Hibbs 2005
Correlate favourable biogeography and long-run development.
Poor countries today tend to be in the tropics. Certain conditions are much better for productivity. Geography also influenced site and type of colonisation. Europe/Eurasia had many favourable endowments (Diamond: plants and animals suited to cultivation, East-West orientation meaning technology was transferable and conducive to trade and commercial exchange).
Suggests the advantage of EU (enabling colonisation) was the early agricultural revolution (producing a surplus, enabling a class of knowledge workers). Early entry here allows earlier achievement of the IR and breaking Malthusian constraints.
Prehistoric biogeog, and geog can explain as much as half of pc income variation in 1997. Deeper explanation than institutions or culture. But fails in the long run; China and the Islamic world were ahead at times.
Fenske 2013
Suggests that pre-colonial institutions correlate with and predict post-colonial ones (persistence), and that these are influenced by land abundance/geography. Colonialism was not the only influence, and effects were heterogenous.
Eg, regions who previously practiced slavery are poorer today (not related to coastal distance). Only in Africa did this correlate with higher quality land (given abundance, everyone prefers to be independent; must be coerced rather than hired). Polygamy also a persistent cultural characteristic.
The presence of well-defined land rights correlates with population density, which correlates with land quality. Land quality also correlates with slavery. Not saying much?
Land rights and commercialisation correlate with ethnic groups where historically there is stronger control over land in the nuclear family.
Nunn and Puga 2012
Countries with rugged terrain in Africa do better today. Suggestion that this is because they were less affected by slavery, since escape was easier. Geography and colonial explanations. Ruggedness globally is bad for income, but only good in Africa (no effect in NA, biggest effect in WA - slave trade patterns). Ruggedness has major statistical significance (1sd deviation in ruggedness -> 40% difference in GDPpc), controlling for resource levels etc.
The levels of slave exports a country experienced effects its modern outcomes through the kind of institutions and legal system put in place, as well as levels of cultural trust. [mechanism?]
Allen 1997
The reason the Egyptian state became a significant civilisation was its early unification. Claims explanation in the geographic conditions of the region, creating clustering of the population around the Nile (and nowhere else to go). Not a long-run explanation.
State made possible by the surplus of agriculture; implies they reached the agri revolution early.
Settlement focused around the river, enabling easier control and fewer outside options. Rule constitutes control of the surplus. State formation enables private ownership and agri development.
Bentzen et al 2015
The prevalence of irrigated agriculture (rather than not) makes a country more likely to be ruled by an authoritarian elite. Through the channel of persistent power in the hands of the land-owning elite (eg holding control of water sources, or the narrow areas suited to agri) which would not be overcome. Institutional/political explanation with a basis in geog. Persistent through control of new industries (banking, manufacturing, bureaucracy).
The resource curse is institutional (eg not in the US or Norway), and new resource discoveries entrench elite power. Irrigation need correlated with measure of institutions (less democracy) and with land inequality, robust to climate, colonisation etc (but stronger in uncolonised; colonisation dilutes this?). Less robust to an Islamic dummy. Lower democracy scores then correlate with worse outcomes today, and this loses power when historic land inequality is accounted for (main cause).
Sokoloff and Engerman 2000
Inequality (in terms of a clearly stratified society) has persisted in the New World (SA) but not US and Canada. NA only got ahead of SA in industrialisation; roughly equal before.
What leads to persistent differences in inequality and outcomes? Institutional variation, with these being majorly affected by inequality, which is driven by geog endowments (kind of agri suitability).
Most of NW was unequal, but NA had very high marginal productivity due to land abundance, creating massive in-migration. NA was not endowed with cash-crop suitability, and had a homogenous migrant population, with little advantage to EoS (there was in the South - and this is where inequality is higher). Whereas in SA and Caribbean, prevalence of sugar etc entrenched a power difference with the landowners of big plantations. SA also had abundant native slave labour and low HC - no scope for development or a middle class, just inequality. Elites secured dominance over emerging industry post-slavery.
Once inequality in place, it is hard to remove due to elite power. Democracy and primary education also more prevalent in NA (far higher turnout in 1940, and wider suffrage than even the most progressive SA states), unexplained by economic development.
This paper does not directly connect the institutions and inequality to lack of development - it evidences inequality then posits a relationship - eg Acemoglu Coase Theorem, Acemoglu and Johnson Political Losers.
