Unbundling Ex-Colonies: A Comment on Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson, 2001

Ola Olsson

No 146, Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: In this comment on AJR (2001), we argue that a bundling of all former colonies into one ‘colonial’ theory of comparative development is problematic for several reasons. During the mercantilist wave of mainly Latin American colonization between 1500-1830, strong capitalist institutions were largely non-existent in the Western world. During the scrable for Africa, starting in 1885, good institutions were an option, but the disease environment had then drastically changed. We show that when AJR’s sample of 64 former colonies is disaggregated into a Latin American, an African, and an Asian/Neo-European subsample, the proposed relationship between settler mortality and institutions is weak or rejected for Latin America and Africa.

Keywords: geography; institutions; development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N40 N50 P33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2004-09-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-lam
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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