Pre-colonial institutions and socioeconomic development: The case of Latin America

Luis Angeles and Aldo Elizalde

Journal of Development Economics, 2017, vol. 124, issue C, 22-40

Abstract: We study the effects of pre-colonial institutions on present-day socioeconomic outcomes for Latin America. Our thesis is that more advanced pre-colonial institutions relate to better socioeconomic outcomes today. We advance that pre-colonial institutions survived to our days thanks to the existence of largely self-governed Amerindian communities in rural Latin America. Amerindians groups with more advanced institutional capacity would have been able to organize and defend their interests in front of national governments; leading to better development outcomes for themselves and for the population at large. We test our thesis with a dataset of 324 sub-national administrative units covering all mainland Latin American countries. Our extensive range of controls covers factors such as climate, location, natural resources, colonial activities and pre-colonial characteristics – plus country fixed effects. Results strongly support our thesis.

Keywords: Latin America; Institutions; Pre-colonial factors; Amerindians; Long-run development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 O43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:124:y:2017:i:c:p:22-40

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.08.006

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