Overview
We come to the last key arguments for what causes some nations to become wealthy and others poor. While we cannot cover an exhaustive list of important factors (this class would be several semesters), we can cover the remaining major arguments. I will over-simplify and lump several into what we might call “geographic determinism:” countries are destined to be wealthy or poor based on their geographies.
This comes into play in several ways, first, the famous geographic determinist argument in Jared Diamond’s famous Guns, Germs, and Steel: regions that span across a single latitude (East-West) were destined to develop before those that span across longitude (North-South) due to climate and geographically-driven variation domesticable plant and animal species.
Readings
Required Reading
- Chapter 2 in Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012, Why Nations Fail
- Sachs, Mellinger, and Gallup (2001), “The Geography of Poverty”
Primary Sources Mentioned
- Alsan (2015), “The Effect of the Tse Tse Fly on African Development”
- Baird, Hicks, Kremer, and Miguel (2016), “Worms at Work: Long-Run Impacts of a Child Health Investment”
- Comin, Easterly, and Gong (2010), “Was the Wealth of Nations Determined in 1000 BC?”
- Gallup, Sachs, and Mellinger (1999), “Geography and Economic Development”
- Rodrik, Subramanian, and Trebbi (2002), “Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development”
- Sachs, Mellinger, and Gallup (2001), “The Geography of Poverty”
- Spolaore and Wacziarg (2013), “How Deep are the Roots of Economic Development”
Slides
Below, you can find the slides in two formats. Clicking the image will bring you to the html version of the slides in a new tab. Note while in going through the slides, you can type h to see a special list of viewing options, and type o for an outline view of all the slides.
The lower button will allow you to download a PDF version of the slides. I suggest printing the slides beforehand and using them to take additional notes in class (not everything is in the slides)!
