IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unm/unumer/2013056.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic development, growth, institutions and geography

Author

Listed:
  • Bhupatiraju S.
  • Verspagen B.

    (UNU-MERIT)

Abstract

In this paper, we test the Rodrik et al 2004 framework to explain differences in development levels across countries by using a broader set of definitions for institutions, geography and economic variables. We use a multi-faceted database to measure institutions in an attempt to go beyond the single-dimension measures that are often employed. We find that institutions trump other factors geography and trade when we use GDP per capita as an independent variable. When we expand the dependent variable to include other aspects of development, such as growth and investment, we find that institutions, growth and geography are all important variables. In this case, institutions no longer trump the other factors. In this case, we also find that the same institutions variable that was positively associated to GDP per capita is now negatively correlated with the more dynamic development variable.

Suggested Citation

  • Bhupatiraju S. & Verspagen B., 2013. "Economic development, growth, institutions and geography," MERIT Working Papers 2013-056, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    • Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2013056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2013/wp2013-056.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2003. "Institutions, trade, and growth : revisiting the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3004, The World Bank.
    2. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    3. 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.
    4. Bhupathiraju, Samyukta & Verspagen, Bart & Ziesemer, Thomas, 2013. "Summarizing large spatial datasets: Spatial principal components and spatial canonical correlation," MERIT Working Papers 2013-011, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    5. 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.
    6. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
    7. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 1-118.
    8. Sudip Ranjan Basu, 2008. "A New Way To Link Development To Institutions, Policies And Geography," UNCTAD Blue Series Papers 37, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    9. 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.
    10. Francisco Rodríguez & Dani Rodrik, 2001. "Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 261-338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Elhanan Helpman & Marc Melitz & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Estimating Trade Flows: Trading Partners and Trading Volumes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 441-487.
    12. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    13. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2003. "Institutions, trade, and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 133-162, January.
    14. Noguer, Marta & Siscart, Marc, 2005. "Trade raises income: a precise and robust result," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 447-460, March.
    15. Borghans, Lex & Meijers, Huub & ter Weel, Bas, 2013. "The importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for measuring IQ," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 17-28.
    16. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2002. "Growth Is Good for the Poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 195-225, September.
    17. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1995. "Institutions And Economic Performance: Cross‐Country Tests Using Alternative Institutional Measures," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 207-227, November.
    18. Flavio Vilela Vieira & Aderbal Oliveira Damasceno, 2011. "Is There a Primary Roleof Institutions on Explaining Cross Country Differences in IncomeLevels and Long-Run Economic Growth?," Anais do XXXVII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 37th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 77, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    19. Gallup, John L. & Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Mellinger, Andrew, "undated". "Geography and Economic Development," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics geodata, Boston College Department of Economics.
    20. Keefer, Philip & Knack, Stephen, 1997. "Why Don't Poor Countries Catch Up? A Cross-National Test of Institutional Explanation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(3), pages 590-602, July.
    21. John Luke Gallup & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew D. Mellinger, 1998. "Geography and Economic Development," NBER Working Papers 6849, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Dawood Mamoon & S. Mansoob Murshed, 2017. "When Education Explains Strong Institutions: Trade Policy also Matters," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 1179-1210, April.
    2. Muhammad Azam, 2022. "Governance and Economic Growth: Evidence from 14 Latin America and Caribbean Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(2), pages 1470-1495, June.

    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. 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.
    2. Raphael A. Auer, 2013. "Geography, institutions, and the making of comparative development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 179-215, June.
    3. Mohammad Salam Ibrahim AlShiab & Husam-Aldin N. Al-Malkawi & Abdelmounaim Lahrech, 2020. "Revisiting the Relationship between Governance Quality and Economic Growth," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 10(4), pages 54-63.
    4. Sambit Bhattacharyya & Steve Dowrick & Jane Golley, 2009. "Institutions and Trade: Competitors or Complements in Economic Development?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 85(270), pages 318-330, September.
    5. Raphael A. Auer, 2008. "The Colonial and Geographic Origins of Comparative Development," Working Papers 2008-08, Swiss National Bank.
    6. Ann-Sofie Isaksson, 2011. "Social divisions and institutions: assessing institutional parameter variation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 331-357, June.
    7. Fedderke, Johannes & Klitgaard, Robert, 2013. "How Much Do Rights Matter?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 187-206.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Oasis Kodila‐Tedika & Sherif Khalifa, 2020. "Long‐term vision and economic development," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(11), pages 3088-3102, November.
    11. Eriṣ, Mehmet N. & Ulaṣan, Bülent, 2013. "Trade openness and economic growth: Bayesian model averaging estimate of cross-country growth regressions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 867-883.
    12. Jasmin Katrin Gröschl, 2013. "Gravity Model Applications and Macroeconomic Perspectives," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 48.
    13. Dawood Mamoon & S. Mansoob Murshed, 2017. "When Education Explains Strong Institutions: Trade Policy also Matters," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 1179-1210, April.
    14. Eric Akobeng, 2017. "Gross Capital Formation, Institutions and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 136-164, April.
    15. Braunfels, Elias, 2016. "Further Unbundling Institutions," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 13/2016, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    16. 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.
    17. Holger Strulik, 2008. "Social composition, social conflict and economic development," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 1145-1170, July.
    18. Noguer, Marta & Siscart, Marc, 2005. "Trade raises income: a precise and robust result," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 447-460, March.
    19. Mehmet Ugur & David Sunderland, 2011. "Does Economic Governance Matter? New Contributions to the Debate," Chapters, in: Mehmet Ugur & David Sunderland (ed.), Does Economic Governance Matter?, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic Development; Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance; Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    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:unm:unumer:2013056. 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: Ad Notten (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/meritnl.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.