IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ifwkwp/1015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Climatic conditions, cultural diversity, and labor productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Gundlach, Erich
  • Matus-Velasco, Ximena

Abstract

Countries with the highest labor productivity overwhelmingly lie in the world's temperate climatic zones far away from the equator. The question we address is whether climatic conditions as measured by distance from the equator remain correlated with labor productivity after other variables are taken into account. We find that climatic conditions do not have a significant impact on labor productivity once we control for factor accumulation and cultural diversity within countries. Our regression results suggest that cultural diversity as measured by the degree of ethnolinguistic fractionalization may severely limit economic development in presently poor countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Gundlach, Erich & Matus-Velasco, Ximena, 2000. "Climatic conditions, cultural diversity, and labor productivity," Kiel Working Papers 1015, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:1015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/2515/1/kap1015.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barro, Robert J & Mankiw, N Gregory & Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1995. "Capital Mobility in Neoclassical Models of Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 103-115, March.
    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. Lian, Brad & Oneal, John R, 1997. "Cultural Diversity and Economic Development: A Cross-National Study of 98 Countries, 1960-1985," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(1), pages 61-77, October.
    4. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
    5. Eric A. Hanushek & Dongwook Kim, 1995. "Schooling, Labor Force Quality, and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 5399, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Ram, Rati, 1997. "Tropics and economic development: An empirical investigation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(9), pages 1443-1452, September.
    7. 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.
    8. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    9. Delano S Villanueva & Roberto S Mariano & Diwa C Guinigundo & Abbas Mirakhor, 2023. "Testing the Neoclassical Theory of Economic Growth: A Panel Data Approach," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Economic Adjustment and Growth Theory and Practice, chapter 2, pages 10-43, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. E. Gundlach & D. Rudman & L. Wossmann, 2002. "Second thoughts on development accounting," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(11), pages 1359-1369.
    11. Peter J. Klenow & Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, 1997. "The Neoclassical Revival in Growth Economics: Has It Gone Too Far?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 73-114, 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. Erich Gundlach, 2001. "Education and Economic Development: An Empirical Perspective," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 37-60, June.
    2. Edgardo Sica, 2005. "Climatic differences and Economic Growth across Italian Provinces: First Empirical Evidence," Quaderni DSEMS 20-2005, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Matematiche e Statistiche, Universita' di Foggia.

    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. Steven N. Durlauf & Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan, 2008. "Empirics of Growth and Development," Chapters, in: Amitava Krishna Dutt & Jaime Ros (ed.), International Handbook of Development Economics, Volumes 1 & 2, volume 0, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. William Hauk & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "A Monte Carlo study of growth regressions," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 103-147, June.
    3. Eric A. Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2008. "The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 607-668, September.
    4. Arno Tausch & Almas Heshmati, 2012. "Migration, Openness and the Global Preconditions of "Smart Development"," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 1-62.
    5. Hafner, Kurt A. & Mayer-Foulkes, David, 2013. "Fertility, economic growth, and human development causal determinants of the developed lifestyle," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PA), pages 107-120.
    6. Erich Gundlach, 2001. "Education and Economic Development: An Empirical Perspective," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 37-60, June.
    7. Erich Gundlach, 2003. "Growth Effects of EU Membership: The Case of East Germany," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 237-270, September.
    8. Lee, Angela Y. & Aaker, Jennifer L., 2006. "A Monte Carlo Study of Growth Regressions," Research Papers 1836r1, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    9. Gundlach, Erich, 1999. "Die Produktivität der Bildung," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 2320, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Tausch, Arno, 2016. "‘Smart development’. An essay on a new political economy of the environment," MPRA Paper 70204, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 2002. "It´s Not Factor Accumulation: Stylized Facts and Growth Models," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 3, pages 061-114, Central Bank of Chile.
    12. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 679-741, Elsevier.
    13. Jordan Rappaport, 2000. "How does openness to capital flows affect growth?," Research Working Paper RWP 00-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    14. Breton, Theodore R., 2004. "Can institutions or education explain world poverty? An augmented Solow model provides some insights," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 45-69, March.
    15. Yeboah Asuamah Samuel & Kumi Ernest & Cynthia Gyamfi, 2012. "Attitudes Towards Tuition Fees Payment in Tertiary Education: A Survey of Sunyani Polytechnic Marketing Students in Sunyani Ghana," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 2(4), pages 231-240.
    16. Genevieve Verdier, 2005. "The (Much Understated) Quantitative Role of Capital Accumulation and Saving," Macroeconomics 0507015, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Erich Gundlach, 2005. "Solow vs. Solow: Notes on Identification and Interpretation in the Empirics of Growth and Development," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 141(3), pages 541-556, October.
    18. Kogel, Tomas, 2005. "Youth dependency and total factor productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 147-173, February.
    19. Mark M. Spiegel, 2001. "Financial development and growth: are the APEC nations unique?," Pacific Basin Working Paper Series 2001-04, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    climatic conditions; factor accumulation; ethnolinguistic diversity; productivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

    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:zbw:ifwkwp:1015. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.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.