Economic growth and economic development 202

Introduction to Modern Economic Growth

Non-Colonies

Log GDP per capita in 1995

11

CHE
JPN
NOR
DNK
AUT
SWE
FIN GBR

10
GRC

NLD

BEL

CZE

SVK
HUN
POL

THA
TUR

BGR

HRV
EST
ROM RUS
BLR
LTU
LVA
KAZ
MKD
UKR
UZB

ITA
ESP
PRT

KOR
SVN

9

8

FRA

CHN

ALB
MDA

7
0

10

20

30

Urbanization in1500

Figure 4.7. No Reversal for the non-colonies: urbanization in 1500
and GDP per capita in 1995 for countries that were not part of the
European overseas empire.
created “latitude specific” technology, such as heavy metal ploughs, that only worked
in temperate latitudes and not with tropical soils. Thus when Europe conquered
most of the world after 1492, they introduced specific technologies that functioned
in some places (the United States, Argentina, Australia) but not others (Peru, Mexico, West Africa). However, the timing of the reversal in the nineteenth century
is inconsistent with the most natural types of sophisticated geography hypotheses.
Europeans may have had latitude specific technologies, but the timing implies that
these technologies must have been industrial, not agricultural, and it is difficult to
see why industrial technologies do not function in the tropics (and in fact, they have
functioned quite successfully in tropical Singapore and Hong Kong).
Similar considerations weigh against the culture hypothesis. Although culture is
slow-changing the colonial experiment was sufficiently radical to have caused major
changes in the cultures of many countries that fell under European rule. In addition,
the destruction of many indigenous populations and immigration from Europe are
likely to have created new cultures or at least modified existing cultures in major
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