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The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics pp 5874–5886Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

History and Comparative Development

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Abstract

What role do historical factors play in explaining the large differences in level of economic development among different countries and world regions today? Our answer begins with the observation that cross-country differences in level of economic development, as well as in rate of economic growth since the end of the European colonial era, are strongly correlated with the average levels of technological and political advance in the places the current population’s ancestors lived on the eve of that era and earlier. We explore recent literature in economics that addresses the evidence for and the causes of this correlation. The interplay between geography and human capital (broadly understood as including culture, norms, and institutional capability) has a central part in our discussion.

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  1. http://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5

    Louis Putterman

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  1. Louis Putterman
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Putterman, L. (2018). History and Comparative Development. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2889

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