ECON 4915 Lecture 11 Andreas Kotsadam Outline Question from you Possible exam question and a recap Last years exam is posted on the web Outline continued Big question today Why are some countries poor and other countries rich ID: 218326
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Slide1
Development Economics ECON 4915 Lecture 11
Andreas KotsadamSlide2
OutlineQuestion from you.
Possible exam question and a recap
.
Last year’s exam is posted on the web.Slide3
Outline continuedBig question today:
Why are some countries poor and other countries rich?
Introduction.
Democracy and development.
Acemoglu et al. (2001).
Glaeser et al. (2004).
Bruhn and Gallego (2012) and
Heldring
and Robinson
(2012)
.Slide4
Questions from youWhat is the relationship between democracy and economic development (today).
There is a lot of time for recap during the last two lectures, tell me if there is something you want covered!Slide5
Possible exam questionOlken and Pande (2011) discuss various ways of measuring coruption. Go through these different types of measures, provide examples, and explain the measures carefully. Slide6
Why are some countries poor and other countries rich?
Blog
:
http://whynationsfail.com/Slide7
History of economic growth
Adam Smith 1776, Malthus 1798Slide8
Why are some countries poor and other countries rich?The geography hypothesis. Three common variants:
Climate may affect productivity directly.
The burden of infectious disease is higher in the tropics thanin the temperate zones.
Geography may determine the technology available to a society
.Slide9
National geographic video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnmT-Y_rGQSlide10
Arguments (1):The first step towards civilization is the move from hunter-gatherer to agriculture, with the domestication and farming of wild crops and animals.Agricultural
production leads to food surpluses, which supports sedentary societies, rapid population growth, and specialization of labor. Slide11
Arguments (2):Large societies tend to develop ruling classes and supporting bureaucracies, which may lead in turn to the organization of nation states and empires.
Eurasia
gained an early advantage due to the greater availability of suitable plant and animal species for domestication. This in turn is due to Eurasia's large landmass and long east-west
distance. Slide12
Arguments against the hypothesisDifferences across neighboring countries (North/South Korea, East/West Germany, Mexico/US).
The tropics in the Americas were much richer than the temperate zones at the time of colonialization.
Hence, the ”obvious fact” of tropical poverty is neither obvious nor a fact. Slide13
Arguments against the hypothesisDisease is largely a consequence of governments being unable or unwilling to take the necessary measures to eradicate it (UK very unhealthy, US
and Australia eliminated malaria
).
Diamond cannot explain the inequality we see within continents (Norway vs India). Slide14
More arguments againstIt cannot explain the reversal of fortune in Latin America, nor that the Middle East once led the world, that the first towns developed in modern Iraq, that iron was first melted in Turkey.
Cannot explain why many nations stagnate for long periods and then start growing really quick. Slide15
Why are some countries poor and other countries rich?The culture hypothesis.
Weber’s argument of the protestant work ethic.
Same critique as above.
Social norms are found to matter and may be hard to change.
Two types of protective arguments:
Social norms are institutions.
Social norms are created by institutions. Slide16
Why are some countries poor and other countries rich?The ignorance hypothesis.
Rulers do not know how to make poor countries rich.
”By convincing rulers about what is good economics we can save the world”.
A&R (2012) argue against this view by saying that ”policymakers in poor countries get it wrong, not by mistake or ignorance but on purpose” (p.68).Slide17
Why are some countries poor and other countries rich?The institutional hypothesis. Poor countries are poor due to poor institutions.
Key question: Why not make the pie larger first and then have more to take from?
Because of commitment problems and since the distribution of resources affect political power. Slide18
And what are good institutions?Those that make countries grow?
Property rights?
Social norms?
Democracy?Slide19
The relationship between democracy and growthWhy would democracy affect growth?
Affects property rights.
Increases consumption and reduces investment.
Autocrats can defend themselves against (other?) special interests.
Autocrats may have an easier time stealing. Slide20
Number of developing countries
Success
Autocracy
9
Democracy
1Slide21
The World Bank Growth Commission “Growth at such a quick pace, over such a long period, requires strong political leadership.” Slide22
Failure
Neither
Success
Autocracy
10
70
9
Democracy
0
12
1Slide23
The argument suffers from a bias called: ”
Reversing conditional probabilities”
“Neglecting base rate bias”
Confuses the conditional probabilities P(A|B) and P(B|A).
The probability that you are an autocrat if you are a growth success is 90 percent.
However, the relevant probability is whether you are a growth success if you are an autocrat, which is only 10 percent.Slide24Slide25
Other biases (see Easterly 2011)Why is the “benevolent autocrat” such a popular idea? Availability heuristic.
Leadership attribution bias or fundamental attribution error.
The “Hot Hand” fallacy
The “Law of Small Numbers”Slide26
So, what is the relation?In the short run it is obviously possible to grow under autocracy.But is it possible to become rich?
Acemoglu & Robinson (2012) basically argue that you need both property rights and broad based political power.
Seem to give primacy to the latterSlide27
Persistence and changeThe best overview of the arguments is given in AJR (2004), ”Institutions as the fundamental cause for long term growth”.
It is the manifesto of their research program.
The argument is divided into 6 parts.Slide28
Economic institutions (property rights, markets) shape incentives and therefore determine the growth potential but also the distribution of resources in the future.The political power of groups determines what economic institutions will prevail.
The size of the pie is not maximized due to commitment problems.
Political institutions (democracy, budget rules) determine constraints and thereby de jure political power.Slide29
The distribution of resources affect the de facto political power (revolts, co-opt the military etc.)Political institutions are generally persistent. Slide30
Schematic framework
State
variables
Proximate
causeSlide31
2 sources of persistencePolitical institutions are durable.Relative richness tends to reproduce inequalities in both power and richness.Slide32
Change in this frameworkThere could be an exogenous shock in the distribution of income (e.g. Atlantic trade, the Black death).Due to different preconditions, these shocks play out differently.
For a revolution to be successful
, it must change the political institutions (e.g. the glorious revolution).Slide33
Acemoglu et al. (2001)Research question: Do institutions cause growth?
Interesting? Yes: Central topic in development and they propose to have evidence for the mainstream view.
Original?
Yes, their causal channel has not been credibly tested before.
Feasible?
Yes, by collecting innovative data and using IV.Slide34
The problemDo institutions cause growth?
Richer
countries
may
afford
better
institutions. Other
factors
may
cause
both
growth
and institutions.
Solution:
Use
an instrument for institutions.Slide35Slide36
Recap IVTo use the IV approach we need at least one additional variable, referred to as an instrument. The instrument has to satisfy two conditions: i) Relevance (easy to test)
ii) Validity (cannot be tested)Slide37Slide38Slide39Slide40
Settler mortality is argued to be keyThey use data on the mortality rates of soldiers, bishops, and sailors stationed in the colonies.The theory behind is that the settlers brought good institutions where they settled and extractive institutions in other areas.Slide41
Identification Strategy and argumentSlide42
EstimationSlide43
GDP and institutionsSlide44
Institutions and settler mortalitySlide45
Reduced formSlide46
ResultsBoth the OLS and IV results suggest that institutions are important for long run growth.The intermediate steps are also found to be consistent with their theory.
The first stage shows that the instrument is relevant.Slide47
Validity“conditional on the controls included in the regression, the mortality rates of European settlers more than 100 years ago have no effect on GDP per capita today, other than their effect through institutional development.”
Cannot
be
confirmed
,
only
rejected
. Slide48
ValidityWhat about current disease environment?“We
believe
that this is unlikely to be the case and that our exclusion restriction is plausible.”
Arguments:
Deaths mainly due to malaria and yellow fever: I
ndigenous
adults
are immune.
Robust to controlling for current disease environment and infant mortality.
Similar results with yellow fever instrument (which
is mostly eradicated today)
.Slide49
ValidityWhat about other channels?
They do overidentification tests.
”
However, such tests may not lead to a rejection if all instruments are invalid, but still highly correlated with each other. Therefore, the results have to be interpreted with caution.
”
We will return to this in Glaeser et al. (2004)Slide50
Glaeser et al. (2004)Research question: Do institutions (really) cause growth?
Interesting? Yes: Central topic in development and they propose to have evidence against the mainstream view. Also important critical discussion on measurement issues.
Original?
Yes, their causal channel has not been credibly tested before.
Feasible?
Yes, basically a replication study.Slide51
A familiar problemDo institutions cause growth, or is it growth (in income or human capital) that causes institutional improvement?
They start with the example of North and South Korea.Slide52
North versus South Korea
In 1980 SK
had
double per capita
income
as
compared
to
NKSlide53
Institutions”A set of rules, compliance procedures, and moral and ethical behavioral norms designed to constrain
the behavior of individuals...”(North 1981).
The constraints should also be permanent or at least durable. Slide54
Three common measures of institutionsInstitutional quality from ICRG. Subjective assessments of risks faced by investors.
Government effectiveness from Kaufmann et al. (2003). Also subjective assessments.
Polity IV from Jaggers and Marshall (2000). Measure constraints on the executive and democracy.Slide55
Forceful critique”...the commonly used measures cannot be used to establish causality.”They reflect outcomes and choices.
Do not measure constraints on government.
They are highly volatile.
Only barely correlated with objective measures of electoral rules.Slide56
Alternative hypothesisTest the hypothesis that education is driving economic development. First of all, initial level of education is an equally strong predictor as the commonly used measures of institutions.
And, the objective measures of institutions are not significant.Slide57
Objective
measuresSlide58
Reverse causality of institutionsAssessments may improve as the country gets richer, so that causality runs the other way.
It is more difficult to argue that economic growth in e.g. the 70s affect education in the 60s.
So let us turn to the IV results of Acemoglu et al. (2001). Slide59
Critique against the settler mortality instrumentEven if one agrees that mortality risk shaped settlement decisions, how do we know that it is institutions that matter?
They also brought with them themselves and hence their human capital.
If settlement affects growth via human capital, the instrument is not valid. Slide60
Critique against the settler mortality instrumentSettler mortality is uncorrelated with objective measures of institutions.
Settler mortality is correlated with the modern disease environment.
They present their own IV regressions with settler mortality as instrument either for schooling or institutions. Slide61Slide62
ResultsYears of schooling, but not executive constraints, are statistically significant. May still be other things the Europeans brought with them like, ”Guns, germs, and steel”.
The point is, why should we think that it is institutions that drives it? Slide63Slide64
The debate is ongoingVery good discussion over at the IIES:http://urplay.se/Produkter/172344-UR-Samtiden-Nobelsymposium-Tillvaxt-och-utveckling-Institutioner
Here the authors actually meet and Acemoglu gives an answer to the critique.Slide65
Bruhn and Gallego (2012)“GOOD, BAD, AND UGLY COLONIAL ACTIVITIES: DO THEY MATTER FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT?”Conclusion: Bad colonial activities (labor exploitation)
led to lower economic development today. “Our results also suggest that differences in political representation (but not in human capital) could be the intermediating factor between colonial activities and current development.”Slide66
Heldring and Robinson (2012)”We
argue
that
in
the
light
of
plausible
counterfactuals, colonialism probably had a uniformly negative effect on
development
in
Africa
.
”