Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities: Studying Development Across the Americas

Contents:

Author Info

  • Miriam Bruhn
  • Francisco Gallego

    () (Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.)

Abstract

Levels of economic development vary widely within countries in the Americas. We argue that this variation can be explained by differences in institutions which in turn have their roots in the colonial era. Colonizers engaged in different economic activities in different regions of a country, depending on the local conditions and the supply of native labor. Some activities, such as mining and sugar cultivation, where "bad" in the sense that they depended heavily on the exploitation of labor and created extractive institutions, while "good" activities created inclusive institutions. We show that areas with bad colonial activities have 13 percent lower GDP per capita today than areas with good colonial activities. Moreover, areas that had high pre-colonial population density have lower output per capita today, independent of the type of colonial activity. We attribute this to the "ugly" fact that colonizers used the pre-colonial population as an exploitable resource, thereby also creating extractive institutions. We present some evidence that the intermediating factor between history and current development is related to institutional differences across regions and not to income inequality or the current ethnic composition of the population.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.economia.puc.cl/docs/dt_334.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. in its series Documentos de Trabajo with number 334.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:334

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Avda. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago
Phone: (562) 354-4303
Fax: (562) 553-1664
Email:
Web page: http://www.economia.puc.cl
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: Colonialism; institutions; endowments; americas; state-level development;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Kris James Mitchener & Ian W. McLean, 2003. "The Productivity of U.S. States Since 1880," NBER Working Papers 9445, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg, 2002. "Borders and Growth," NBER Working Papers 9223, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
  4. Abhijit Banerjee & Lakshmi Iyer, 2010. "History Institutions and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India," Working Papers id:2811, eSocialSciences.
  5. Douglas A. Irwin & Marko Tervio, 2000. "Does Trade Raise Income? Evidence from the Twentieth Century," NBER Working Papers 7745, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Merrouche, Ouarda, 2007. "The Long Term Impact of French Settlement on Education in Algeria," Working Paper Series 2007:2, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
  7. Acemoglu, D. & Ticchi, D. & Vindigni, A., 2006. "Emergence and Persistence of Inefficient States," Papers 12-02-2006, Princeton University, Research Program in Political Economy.
  8. Andres Rosas & Juan Mendoza, 2004. "The economic effects of geography Colombia as a case study," DOCUMENTOS DE ECONOMÍA 003584, UNIVERSIDAD JAVERIANA - BOGOTÁ.
  9. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
  10. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A, 2004. "Institutions as the Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 4458, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  11. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," NBER Working Papers 8460, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Abhijit Banerjee & Lakshmi Iyer & Rohini Somanathan, 2005. "History, Social Divisions, and Public Goods in Rural India," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 639-647, 04/05.
  13. Tabellini, Guido, 2007. "Culture and Institutions," CEPR Discussion Papers 6589, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  14. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 2002. "Tropics, Germs, and Crops: How Endowments Influence Economic Development," Working Papers 15, Center for Global Development.
  15. Almeida, Rita K. & Carneiro, Pedro, 2007. "Inequality and Employment in a Dual Economy: Enforcement of Labor Regulation in Brazil," IZA Discussion Papers 3094, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  16. Hoyt Bleakley, 2010. "Malaria Eradication in the Americas: A Retrospective Analysis of Childhood Exposure," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 1-45, April.
  17. Easterly, William, 2000. "the middle class consensus and economic development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2346, The World Bank.
  18. Rohini Pande & Christopher Udry, 2005. "Institutions and Development:A View from Below," Working Papers 928, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
  19. Stanley L. Engerman & Kenneth Lee Sokoloff, 2002. "Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development among New World Economies," Journal of LACEA Economia, LACEA - LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION.
  20. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2006. "De Facto Political Power and Institutional Persistence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 325-330, May.
  21. Joana Naritomi & Rodrigo R. Soares & Juliano J. Assunção, 2007. "Rent Seeking and the Unveiling of 'De Facto' Institutions: Development and Colonial Heritage within Brazil," NBER Working Papers 13545, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  22. Jaime Bonet & Adolfo Meisel Roca, 2006. "El legado colonial como determinante del ingreso per cápita departamental en Colombia," DOCUMENTOS DE TRABAJO SOBRE ECONOMÍA REGIONAL 002520, BANCO DE LA REPÚBLICA - ECONOMÍA REGIONAL.
  23. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472 Elsevier.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Denis Cogneau & Léa Rouanet, 2009. "Living Conditions in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Western Africa 1925-1985: What Do Survey Data on Height Stature Tell Us?," Working Papers DT/2009/12, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
  2. Maloney, William F. & Caicedo, Felipe Valencia, 2012. "The persistence of (subnational) fortune : geography, agglomeration, and institutions in the new world," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6187, The World Bank.
  3. André Martínez-Fritscher & Aldo Musacchio & Martina Viarengo, 2010. "The Great Leap Forward: The Political Economy Of Education In Brazil, 1889-1930," Working Papers 03-2010, Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade de Ribeirão Preto.
  4. Dietz Vollrath, 2008. "Wealth Distribution and the Provision of Public Goods: Evidence from the United States," Working Papers 2008-04, Department of Economics, University of Houston.
  5. Francisco A. Gallego, 2010. "Historical Origins of Schooling: The Role of Democracy and Political Decentralization," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(2), pages 228-243, May.
  6. Joana Naritomi & Rodrigo R. Soares & Juliano J. Assunção, 2007. "Rent Seeking and the Unveiling of 'De Facto' Institutions: Development and Colonial Heritage within Brazil," NBER Working Papers 13545, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Dobado González, Rafael / R & García Montero, Héctor / H, 2010. "Colonial Origins of Inequality in Hispanic America? Some reflections based on new empirical evidence," MPRA Paper 28738, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  8. Naritomi, Joana & Soares, Rodrigo R. & Assunção, Juliano J., 2012. "Institutional Development and Colonial Heritage within Brazil," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(02), pages 393-422, June.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:334

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Amparo García).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.