Dietz Vollrath: The Deep Roots of Development: "Institutions versus geography?... Compare... Melissa Dell’s paper on the mining mita in Peru... forced labor... to provide work in the Potosi silver mine for Spain. Dell established in her paper that areas today that were once inside the mita have lower development levels.... Marcella Alsan’s paper on the effect of the TseTse fly on African development. She builds a measure of the natural geographic range of the TseTse fly.... Both... show that aspects of development are persistently affected by deep roots... the mita... continues to cast a shadow... historical shocks have persistent effects.... In Alsan, the deep root is the range of the TseTse fly, which affected how ethnic groups within Africa subsisted, with effects on the role of women and type of agriculture...
...Empirical methodology and data.... This deep roots literature... is an almost entirely empirical literature.... Methodologically, the deep roots literature has ingested much of the logic of the causal revolution... combined that with... extensive GIS data... [and] cultural datasets... the Ethnographic Atlas.... Acknowledging that geography (or biology, or agro-climatic characteristics) are significant for some cultural trait, institution, or level of development does not imply a deterministic relationship exists, and that history is locked in no matter what. R-squares are not 100%! The findings in this literature do not mean it is impossible to change the development level of countries or groups today. But the deep-rooted nature of development may mean we have to find other policy levers to push, as we cannot go back in time and roll back colonization, or change inherent agricultural productivity...
Dietz Vollrath: How deep are the roots of current economic development?
#noted #economichistory
