Abstract
The threads from the previous chapters are tied together to suggest that geography, culture and institutions together play a pivotal role in influencing economic development outcomes. In addition to directly influencing output, geography has proximate effects via culture and institutions. Empirical analyses also verify that aspects of culture affect the quality of institutions and directly influence modern economic development. Since the cultural data used is for preindustrial societies it avoids the reverse influence of economic progress on cultural values. Together the findings help explain the early divergence in standards of living across the world and also why these disparities are persistent. They also suggest that successful policies aimed at improving development outcomes should reflect the geographical constraints and cultural and institutional frameworks in which they are to take effect.
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Notes
- 1.
Tabellini 2010.
- 2.
Grief 1994.
- 3.
See Appendix C for details on the results.
- 4.
See Appendix C for details on the results. The base model is the same one developed by Gallup et al. 1999. The OLS regressions were robust with P-values corresponding to Hubert and White standard errors; the number of observations falls quite substantially due to missing values when overlapping the Gallup et al. (1999) data with the SCCS variables.
Bibliography
Gallup, John Luke, Jeffrey D. Sachs, and Andrew D. Mellinger. “Geography and economic development.” International Regional Science Review 22, no. 2 (1999): 179–232.
Grief, Avner. “Cultural beliefs and the organization of society: A historical and theoretical reflection on collectivist and individualist societies.” Journal of Political Economy 102, no. 5 (1994): 912–950.
Tabellini, Guido. “Culture and institutions: Economic development in the regions of Europe.” Journal of the European Economic Association 8, no. 4 (2010): 677–716.
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Khawar, M. (2017). Connecting the Arrows – Geography, Culture, Institutions and Economic Development. In: The Geography of Underdevelopment. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55348-5_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55348-5_6
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