Malthus to Romer: On the Colonial Origins of the Industrial Revolution

Cordoba, Juan-Carlos (2007): Malthus to Romer: On the Colonial Origins of the Industrial Revolution.

Abstract

We propose a unified theory to explain the diverse paths of economic and institutional development of colonized and colonizers following the great discoveries at the end of the XV century. In our theory, the institutional and economic divergence between Spain and England observed during the age of colonization obeys to the same forces put forward by Engerman and Sokoloff (1997) to explain the divergence between Latin America and North America: factor endowments at the moment of the conquest.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Institution: Rice University
• Language: English
• Keywords: Malthus Stagnation; Endogenous Growth; Development
• Subjects: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O18 - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis ; Housing ; Infrastructure; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J10 - General; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N10 - General, International, or Comparative; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O57 - Comparative Studies of Countries; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E23 - Production; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O11 - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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