IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/16862.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Disease, Institutions and Underdevelopment

Author

Listed:
  • Hasan, Lubna

Abstract

What explains poverty of Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia? One view holds the disease environment of these regions as the primary culprit. Others see it as a typical symptom of growth retarding institutions. We test validity of these competing assertions for a cross section of countries. Our results indicate that institutions are the prime determinant of economic performance of countries. Disease does not play a significant role in determining outcomes. On the contrary, we find support for the indirect effect of disease via institutions, as asserted by the 'institutions school'. Interestingly, the 'institutions school' contention about geography having no direct effect on income is also not validated. Our results show that being land locked can pose significant disadvantage for a country. Endowment of hydrocarbon, however, is beneficial for economic outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Hasan, Lubna, 2009. "Disease, Institutions and Underdevelopment," MPRA Paper 16862, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:16862
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/16862/1/MPRA_paper_16862.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David E. Bloom & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 1998. "Geography, Demography, and Economic Growth in Africa," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(2), pages 207-296.
    2. Lubna Hasan, 2007. "Myths and Realities of Long-run Development: A Look at Deeper Determinants," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 46(1), pages 19-44.
    3. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    4. Kai Carstensen & Erich Gundlach, 2006. "The Primacy of Institutions Reconsidered: Direct Income Effects of Malaria Prevalence," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 20(3), pages 309-339.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson, 2007. "Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 925-985, December.
    6. Dani Rodrik & Arvind Subramanian & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 131-165, June.
    7. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James Robinson, 2003. "Disease and Development in Historical Perspective," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 397-405, 04/05.
    9. Chris Papageorgiou & Shankha Chakraborty, 2005. "Diseases and Development," Departmental Working Papers 2005-12, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    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. Hasan, Iftekhar & Koetter, Michael & Wedow, Michael, 2009. "Regional growth and finance in Europe: Is there a quality effect of bank efficiency?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1446-1453, August.
    2. repec:zbw:bofitp:2013_020 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Baumöhl, Eduard & Iwasaki, Ichiro & Kočenda, Evžen, 2019. "Institutions and determinants of firm survival in European emerging markets," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 431-453.
    4. repec:zbw:bofitp:2010_004 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Hasan, Iftekhar & Song, Liang & Wachtel, Paul, 2014. "Institutional development and stock price synchronicity: Evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 92-108.
    6. repec:zbw:bofitp:2012_005 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2009_013 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Herrala, Risto & Yandong, Jia, 2012. "Has the Chinese growth model changed? : A view from the credit market," BOFIT Discussion Papers 5/2012, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    9. Berger, Allen N. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Zhou, Mingming, 2010. "The effects of focus versus diversification on bank performance: Evidence from Chinese banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1417-1435, July.

    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. Bhattacharyya, Sambit, 2009. "Institutions, diseases, and economic progress: a unified framework," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 65-87, April.
    2. P. Dorian Owen, 2017. "Evaluating Ingenious Instruments for Fundamental Determinants of Long-Run Economic Growth and Development," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 5(3), pages 1-33, September.
    3. Sambit Bhattacharyya, 2009. "Root Causes of African Underdevelopment," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 18(5), pages 745-780, November.
    4. Jinfeng Luo & Yi Wen, 2015. "Institutions Do Not Rule: Reassessing the Driving Forces of Economic Development," Working Papers 2015-1, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    5. Trung V. Vu, 2022. "Does institutional quality foster economic complexity? The fundamental drivers of productive capabilities," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 1571-1604, September.
    6. Alan Martina, 2009. "On the Constrained Contribution of Advances in Medical Knowledge to the Economic Growth of Developing Countries," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2009-504, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    7. Sambit Bhattacharyya, 2020. "A History of Global Capitalism: Feuding Elites and Imperial Expansion," Working Paper Series 1020, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    8. Alali, Walid Y., 2010. "Impact of Institutions and Policy on Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence," EconStor Preprints 269878, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    9. Alali, Walid Y., 2010. "Impact of Institutions and Policy on Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 115610, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Alan Martina, 2007. "A Class of Poverty Traps: A Theory and Empirical Tests," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2007-482, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    11. Vieira, Flávio & MacDonald, Ronald & Damasceno, Aderbal, 2012. "The role of institutions in cross-section income and panel data growth models: A deeper investigation on the weakness and proliferation of instruments," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 127-140.
    12. Maximiliano Marzetti & Rok Spruk, 2023. "Long-Term Economic Effects of Populist Legal Reforms: Evidence from Argentina," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(1), pages 60-95, March.
    13. Oleg Badunenko & Daniel Henderson & Romain Houssa, 2014. "Significant drivers of growth in Africa," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 339-354, December.
    14. Åsa Johansson, 2016. "Public Finance, Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of the Evidence," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1346, OECD Publishing.
    15. Stephen Knowles & P. Dorian Owen, 2010. "Which Institutions are Good for Your Health? The Deep Determinants of Comparative Cross-country Health Status," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 701-723.
    16. Guanchun Liu & Chien-Chiang Lee & Yuanyuan Liu, 2020. "Growth path heterogeneity across provincial economies in China: the role of geography versus institutions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 503-546, August.
    17. Vu, Trung V., 2020. "Individualism and climate change policies: International evidence," MPRA Paper 98888, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. repec:zbw:bofitp:2009_009 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Raphael A. Auer, 2007. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: Comment. A Solution to the Debate on Settler Mortality Rates," Working Papers 2007-09, Swiss National Bank.
    20. Randall M. Packard, 2009. "“Roll Back Malaria, Roll in Development”? Reassessing the Economic Burden of Malaria," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 35(1), pages 53-87, March.
    21. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic Performance; Institutions; Disease;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:16862. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.