Reconciling Acemoglu and Sachs: geography, institutions and technology

Nima Veiseh

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper attempts to reconcile two models for sustainable economic growth in developing countries. I develop an empirical and theoretical case for how the geographic landscape of a country determines the ease with which it can assimilate foreign technologies and establish institutions favorable to economic growth. I explore the threshold between the seemingly conflicting geographic (Sachs et al.) and institutional (Acemoglu et al.) theories, and economic growth. I do this by developing a technologically determinant, intermediate bifurcation where growth shifts from being geographically to institutionally driven after enough technology has been assimilated. My analysis finds that the rate of technological assimilation is determined by the landscape of a country. As the technology level increases, income level converges toward the level of developed countries. After reaching a certain threshold, however, the primary driver of economic growth appears to shift from geography to institutions.

Keywords: Economic Growth; Technology; Geography; Institutions; Bifurcation; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O1 O33 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-09-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Journal of International Affairs 2010, Fall/Winter.64(2010): pp. 205-220

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/33574/1/MPRA_paper_33574.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:pra:mprapa:33574

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().