There is controversy about whether geography matters mainly because of
its contemporaneous impact on economic outcomes or because of its
interaction with historical events. Looking at terrain ruggedness, we
are able to estimate the importance of these two channels. Because
rugged terrain hinders trade and most productive activities, it has a
negative direct effect on income. However, in Africa rugged terrain
afforded protection to those being raided during the slave trades.
Since the slave trades retarded subsequent economic development, in
Africa ruggedness also has had a historical indirect positive effect on
income. Studying all countries worldwide, we find that both effects are
significant statistically and that for Africa the indirect positive
effect dominates the direct negative effect. Looking within Africa, we
provide evidence that the indirect effect operates through the slave
trades. We also show that the slave trades, by encouraging population
concentrations in rugged areas, have also amplified the negative direct
impact of rugged terrain in Africa.
That’s a new paper by Nathan Nunn and Diego Puga. Some say the paper is here, not I. Others say you can get it here. I say you can get an html version here. Here is one quick summary of the argument. Here are Nunn’s other papers on the slave trade, and how it continues to affect current African development.
The Appalachian – Allegheny – Adirondack mountain chain was considered not only “rugged” but actually a threat to the unity of the young Republic (i.e., those on the western side would, the argument went, have so little contact with the coastal communities to the east that they would cease thinking of themselves as “Americans”).
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson used this as an excuse to argue for a Potomac-based (i.e., Virginia-based) canal to the West.
Then the Erie Canal was built — despite Jefferson’s hypocritical (i.e., Virginia-based) objections — and the rest is economic history.
Because rugged terrain hinders trade and most productive activities, it has a negative direct effect on income.
My paternal grandpa spent his life building roads in the Pacific Northwest; looking at the negative value of his estate .. man ain’t that the truth.
those on the western side would, the argument went, have so little contact with the coastal communities to the east that they would cease thinking of themselves as “Americans”
I have a popular history at home; the author is writing about the settlement of the West and claims that if you looked strictly at geography at the end of the 18th century Spain should have dominated North America west of the Mississippi. Why not? They owned that entire region.
He writes “Geography is limiting but rarely determining in human affairs.” His point being that there were a horde of Anglo-Celt hillbillies with the highest birthrate in the world at that time spilling off the Blue Ridge.
I think the Northwest Ordnance had more to do with keeping the folks in the West American that the Erie Canal – but the Erie Canal remains my favorite bit of engineering. And funded entirely by New York state at that.
I read the summary and have skimmed the paper, but this isn’t striking me as one of those “How stupid of me not to have thought of it” findings (as Huxley said upon reading the “Origin of Species.” I don’t see many examples of countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are notably more prosperous today because of rugged terrain (Ethiopia? Zimbabwe? Rwanda? Malawi?), so I’m having a hard time seeing what the authors are getting at.
A big part of the problem is that with the exception of mineral rich countries like Botswanta and Gabon, there really isn’t that much variation within sub-Saharan African countries in terms of per capita GDP.
Much of the variation between countries over time seems driven by political ups and downs, such as having your President-for-Life be in his prime rather than his dotage. For example, when I briefly worked in the area of African development in the early 1980s, Ivory Coast was the shining star and Ghana was the object lesson, but they’ve since largely reversed that ranking.
Apparently, the paper argues that there are two countervailing tendencies — ruggedness drives down prosperity but also protects from the effect of the slave trade (of many generations ago) — so everybody in Africa comes out about the same. Maybe, but this could also be considered an example of Occam’s Butterknife in action, positing two forces that cancel each other out.
There’s also the issue that per capita GDP isn’t necessarily the best measure of economic success in a Malthusian trap environment. On a GDP per square kilometer basis, places like Java and the Nile Delta are surprisingly prosperous, while Botswana (a relatively high GDP/capita African country) is not.
But that raises the issue of whether the Malthusian trap was operative in Africa. John Reader’s “Africa: Biography of a Continent” argues that lack of land was seldom a constraint on population growth — instead, disease burden that went up with human density kept Africa less densely populated than other locations.
There’s an early Jeffrey Sachs paper commenting on how, in the tropics, highlands are a better place to practice subsistence agriculture than the lowlands, less malaria, fewer insect pests, and the sun gives as much if not more light, but less heat (higher primary product for agriculture).
Without a more critical examination of the assumption that rugged tropic terrain is bad for human habitation, the synopsis seems like is doesn’t demonstrate much.
“In the long run, it’s better to not be isolated. Which means we better hope aliens find us soon.”
Maybe you should ask a Tasmanian about the advantages of not being isolated anymore? Or a Chatham Islander? Or a Tierra Del Fuegan? Or an Andaman Islander?
Maybe you should ask a Tasmanian about the advantages of not being isolated anymore?
These are the guys that had lost the art of sewing and boat building, yes? I think they would have been better off to have retained contact and acquired immunity against European disease and technology to fight off acquisitive English.
in Africa rugged terrain afforded protection to those being raided during the slave trades.
Presumably rugged terrain also afforded protection to those being attacked after the slave trades – that is, within the last century and a half. How did he allow for this effect?
doctorpat: “These [Tasmania and Chatham] are all classic examples of why being isolated is a very bad thing.”
Yes but in both those cases it was the end of their isolation that ultimately did them in. If aliens showed up tomorrow and wiped us out your conclusion would be that isolation is bad, and that we were dumb to have remained isolated. Those islanders should have invited the colonizers earlier, that’s your conclusion?
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