Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities : Studying Development Across the Americas

Bruhn, Miriam ; Gallego, Francisco A.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCESS TO EDUCATION;    AGE DISTRIBUTION;    AGRICULTURE;    BENCHMARKS;    CALCULATIONS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4641
RP-ID  :  WPS4641

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Levels of economic development varywidely within countries in the Americas. This paper arguesthat part of this variation has its roots in the colonialera. Colonizers engaged in different economic activities indifferent regions of a country, depending on localconditions. Some activities were "bad" in thesense that they depended heavily on the exploitation oflabor and created extractive institutions, while"good" activities created inclusive institutions.The authors show that areas with bad colonial activitieshave lower gross domestic product per capita today thanareas with good colonial activities. Areas with highpre-colonial population density also do worse today. Inparticular, the positive effect of "good"activities goes away in areas with high pre-colonialpopulation density. The analysis attributes this to the"ugly" fact that colonizers used the pre-colonialpopulation as an exploitable resource. The intermediatingfactor between history and current development appears to beinstitutional differences across regions and not incomeinequality or the current ethnic composition of the population.