INSTITUTIONS AND THE LONG-RUN IMPACT OF EARLY DEVELOPMENT

James Ang

No 49-12, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study the role of institutional development as a causal mechanism of history affecting current economic performance. Several indicators capturing different dimensions of early development in 1500 AD are used to remove the endogenous component of the variations in institutions. These indicators are adjusted with large-scale movements of people across international borders using the global migration matrix of Putterman and Weil (2010) to account for the fact that the ancestors of a population have facilitated the diffusion of knowledge when they migrate. The exogenous component of institutions due to historical development is found to be a significant determinant of current output. By demonstrating that the relationship between early development and current economic performance works through the channel of institutions and that better institutions can be traced back to historical factors, the results of this paper shed some light on how history has played a role in shaping long-run comparative development.

Keywords: institutions; long-run comparative development; technology adoption. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O10 O30 O43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2012-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/papers/2012/4912institutionsang.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden (http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/papers/2012/4912institutionsang.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.monash.edu/business/ [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.monash.edu/business)

Related works:
Journal Article: Institutions and the long-run impact of early development (2013)
Working Paper: Institutions and the Long-run Impact of Early Development (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mos:moswps:2012-49

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www.monash.e ... esearch/publications

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics Department of Economics, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Simon Angus ().