Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/62657 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2012-5
Publisher: 
Brown University, Department of Economics, Providence, RI
Abstract: 
Research on economic growth suggests that the era of colonization has had an impact on the levels of economic development of countries around the globe. However, why some countries were colonized early, some late, and others not at all, and what effect these differences have had on current income, has not been studied systematically. In the first part of this paper, we show that both the occurrence and the timing of colonization can be explained by (a) differences in levels of pre-1500 development, (b) proximity to the colonizing powers, (c) disease environment, and (d) latitude. In the second part, we analyze the developmental consequences of colonization while taking the endogeneity of colonization's occurrence and timing into account. Whereas naïve estimates can suggest large impacts, we find that neither the fact nor the timing of colonization affect income today once colonization's impact on the composition of the population and the quality of institutions is controlled for.
Subjects: 
Colonization
Growth
Institutions
Pre-Modern Development
Migration
JEL: 
O11
O13
O40
O57
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
2.32 MB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.