IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jintdv/v20y2008i3p326-346.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Congo and Korea: a study in divergence

Author

Listed:
  • Phillip Garner

    (Brigham Young University, Provo, USA)

Abstract

The growth experiences of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Korea over the last several decades have been polar opposites. Despite this divergence in economic outcomes, the two countries shared some initial similarities including very low income, high population growth rates, harsh colonial regimes, military coups and Cold War politics. There were also important initial differences in population density, ethnolinguistic diversity, natural resource endowments and geography. Given its enormous mineral wealth, economic prospects initially appeared brighter in the Congo than in Korea to most contemporary observers. This paper explores the possible causes of divergences in the two countries by examining initial conditions, economic and demographic trends, geography and governance. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Phillip Garner, 2008. "Congo and Korea: a study in divergence," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(3), pages 326-346.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:20:y:2008:i:3:p:326-346
    DOI: 10.1002/jid.1418
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/jid.1418
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/jid.1418?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & William Easterly & Janina Matuszeski, 2011. "Artificial States," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 246-277, April.
    2. Easterly, William, 2001. "Can Institutions Resolve Ethnic Conflict?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(4), pages 687-706, July.
    3. Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "Tropical Underdevelopment," NBER Working Papers 8119, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Raghuram G. Rajan & Arvind Subramanian, 2008. "Aid and Growth: What Does the Cross-Country Evidence Really Show?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 643-665, November.
    5. William Easterly & Ross Levine & David Roodman, 2004. "Aid, Policies, and Growth: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 774-780, June.
    6. World Bank, 2005. "World Development Indicators 2005," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 12425.
    7. Mick Moore, 2001. "Political Underdevelopment: What causes ‘bad governance’," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 385-418, September.
    8. Azam Chaudhry & Phillip Garner, 2006. "Political Competition Between Countries and Economic Growth," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 666-682, November.
    9. David N. Well, 2007. "Accounting for the Effect Of Health on Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1265-1306.
    10. repec:wbk:wbpubs:12426 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Xavier Sala-I-Martin & Gernot Doppelhofer & Ronald I. Miller, 2004. "Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 813-835, September.
    12. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Minoiu, Camelia & Reddy, Sanjay G., 2010. "Development aid and economic growth: A positive long-run relation," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 27-39, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kerekes, Carrie B. & Williamson, Claudia R., 2008. "Unveiling de Soto's mystery: property rights, capital formation, and development," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 299-325, December.
    2. Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2010. "Aid and Conditionality," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4415-4523, Elsevier.
    3. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    4. Serhan Cevik & Mohammad Rahmati, 2015. "Breaking the Curse of Sisyphus: An Empirical Analysis of Post-Conflict Economic Transitions," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 57(4), pages 569-597, December.
    5. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2007. "Institutions, Trade, and Social Cohesion in Fragile States," ICER Working Papers 24-2007, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    6. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2015. "The Impact of Fundamental Development Factors on Different Income Groups: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113128, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. León-González, Roberto & Montolio, Daniel, 2015. "Endogeneity and panel data in growth regressions: A Bayesian model averaging approach," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 23-39.
    8. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Ola Olsson, 0. "Windfall Gains, Political Economy and Economic Development," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 17(suppl_1), pages -109.
    9. Kourtellos, Andros & Tan, Chih Ming & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2007. "Is the relationship between aid and economic growth nonlinear?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 515-540, September.
    10. Cagé, Julia, 2009. "Growth, Poverty Reduction and Governance in Developing Countries: a Survey," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 0904, CEPREMAP.
    11. Ratbek Dzhumashev, 2014. "The Two-Way Relationship Between Government Spending And Corruption And Its Effects On Economic Growth," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(2), pages 403-419, April.
    12. Simeon Djankov & Jose Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2008. "The curse of aid," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 169-194, September.
    13. Keith Blackburn & Gonzalo F. Forgues-Puccio, 2011. "Foreign aid - a fillip for development or a fuel for corruption?," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 158, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    14. Cohen-Cole, Ethan B. & Durlauf, Steven N. & Rondina, Giacomo, 2012. "Nonlinearities in growth: From evidence to policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 42-58.
    15. Evelyn Wamboye & Abel Adekola & Bruno S. Sergi, 2014. "Foreign aid, legal origin, economic growth and Africa’s least developed countries," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 14(4), pages 335-357, October.
    16. Glawe, Linda & Wagner, Helmut, 2017. "The Deep Determinants of the Middle-Income Trap," CEAMeS Discussion Paper Series 10/2017, University of Hagen, Center for East Asia Macro-economic Studies (CEAMeS), revised 2017.
    17. Baliamoune-Lutz, Mina, 2009. "Institutions, trade, and social cohesion in fragile states: Implications for policy conditionality and aid allocation," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 877-890, November.
    18. Madsen, Jakob B., 2016. "Barriers to Prosperity: Parasitic and Infectious Diseases, IQ, and Economic Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 172-187.
    19. Ahmet Faruk AYSAN & Mustapha Kamel NABLI & Marie‐Ange VÉGANZONÈS‐VAROUDAKIS, 2007. "Governance Institutions And Private Investment: An Application To The Middle East And North Africa," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 45(3), pages 339-377, September.
    20. Gerring, John & Thacker, Strom C. & Lu, Yuan & Huang, Wei, 2015. "Does Diversity Impair Human Development? A Multi-Level Test of the Diversity Debit Hypothesis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 166-188.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:20:y:2008:i:3:p:326-346. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5102/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.