Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities : Do They Matter for Economic Development?

Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities : Do They Matter for Economic Development?

Levels of development vary widely within countries in the Americas. We argue that part of this variation has its roots in the colonial era, when colonizers engaged in different economic activities in different regions of a country.We present evidence consistent with the view that “bad” activities...

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Main Authors: Bruhn, Miriam, Gallego, Francisco A.
Format: Journal Article
Language:en_US
Published: MIT Press 2015
Subjects:
colonial history
economic development
subnational economic development
colonization
growth paths
exploitation
economies of scale
forced labor
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/21436
id okr-10986-21436
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-214362021-04-23T14:04:02Z Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities : Do They Matter for Economic Development? Bruhn, Miriam Gallego, Francisco A. colonial history economic development subnational economic development colonization growth paths exploitation economies of scale forced labor Levels of development vary widely within countries in the Americas. We argue that part of this variation has its roots in the colonial era, when colonizers engaged in different economic activities in different regions of a country.We present evidence consistent with the view that “bad” activities (those that depended heavily on labor exploitation) led to lower economic development today than “good” activities (those that did not rely on labor exploitation). Our results also suggest that differences in political representation (but not in income inequality or human capital) could be the intermediating factor between colonial activities and current development. 2015-02-12T20:29:18Z 2015-02-12T20:29:18Z 2012-05 Journal Article Review of Economics and Statistics 0034-6535 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/21436 en_US CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank MIT Press Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Journal Article
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language en_US
topic colonial history
economic development
subnational economic development
colonization
growth paths
exploitation
economies of scale
forced labor
spellingShingle colonial history
economic development
subnational economic development
colonization
growth paths
exploitation
economies of scale
forced labor
Bruhn, Miriam
Gallego, Francisco A.
Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities : Do They Matter for Economic Development?
description Levels of development vary widely within countries in the Americas. We argue that part of this variation has its roots in the colonial era, when colonizers engaged in different economic activities in different regions of a country.We present evidence consistent with the view that “bad” activities (those that depended heavily on labor exploitation) led to lower economic development today than “good” activities (those that did not rely on labor exploitation). Our results also suggest that differences in political representation (but not in income inequality or human capital) could be the intermediating factor between colonial activities and current development.
format Journal Article
author Bruhn, Miriam
Gallego, Francisco A.
author_facet Bruhn, Miriam
Gallego, Francisco A.
author_sort Bruhn, Miriam
title Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities : Do They Matter for Economic Development?
title_short Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities : Do They Matter for Economic Development?
title_full Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities : Do They Matter for Economic Development?
title_fullStr Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities : Do They Matter for Economic Development?
title_full_unstemmed Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities : Do They Matter for Economic Development?
title_sort good, bad, and ugly colonial activities : do they matter for economic development?
publisher MIT Press
publishDate 2015
url http://hdl.handle.net/10986/21436
_version_ 1764448256720371712

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