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Introduction to Modern Economic Growth
indicate that, as claimed in the text, total population in Asia has been consistently
greater than in Western Europe over this time period.
The geography hypothesis has many proponents. In addition to Montesquieu,
Machiavelli was an early proponent of the importance of climate and geographic
characteristics. Marshall (1890), Kamarck (1976), and Myrdal (1986) are among
the economists who have most clearly articulated various different versions of the
geography hypothesis. It has more recently been popularized by Sachs (2000, 2001),
Bloom and Sachs (1998) and Gallup and Sachs (2001). Diamond (1997) offers a more
sophisticated version of the geography hypothesis, where the availability of different
types of crops and animals, as well as the axes of communication of continents,
influence the timing of settled agriculture and thus the possibility of developing
complex societies. Diamond’s thesis is therefore based on geographic differences,
but also relies on such institutional factors as intervening variables.
Scholars emphasizing the importance of various types of institutions in economic development include John Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Arthur
Lewis, Douglass North and Robert Thomas. The recent economics literature includes many models highlighting the importance of property rights, for example,
Skaperdas (1992), Tornell and Velasco (1992), Acemoglu (1995), Grossman and
Kim (1995, 1996), Hirsleifer (2001) and Dixit (2004). Other models emphasize the
importance of policies within a given institutional framework. Well-known examples
of this approach include Perotti (1993), Saint-Paul and Verdier (1993), Alesina and
Rodrik (1994), Persson and Tabellini (1994), Ades and Verdier (1996), Krusell and
Rios-Rull (1999), and Bourguignon and Verdier (2000). There is a much smaller literature on endogenous institutions and the effect of these institutions on economic
outcomes. Surveys of this work can be found in Acemoglu (2007) and Acemoglu and
Robinson (2006). The literature on the effect of economic institutions on economic
growth is summarized and discussed in greater detail in Acemoglu, Johnson and
Robinson (2006), which also provides an overview of the empirical literature on the
topic. We will return to many of these issues and Part 8 of the book.
The importance of religion for economic development is most forcefully argued in
Max Weber’s work, for example (1930, 1958). Many other scholars since then have
picked up on this idea and have argued about the importance of religion. Prominent
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