Geography slides

1. 2. Geography
Ryan Herzog, Ph.D.

2. GDP per capita, 2017
http://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPPC@WEO/THA

3. Geography and Development
• Collier, Paul (2007). The Bottom Billion: Why the
Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done
About It. Oxford: Oxford UP. (Chapters 3-4).
• Sachs, Jeffrey D., Mellinger, Andrew D. and John L.
Gallup (March 2001). The Geography of Poverty and
Wealth. Scientific American, 70-75.
• Harrison, C., Diamond, J. M., Coyote, P., Lambert, T.,
Diamond, J. M., (2005). Guns, germs, and steel.
United States: National Geographic. (Episode One
and Three)

4. The Bottom Billion
• Chapter 3: The Natural
Resource Trap
– “Dutch Disease”
• Chapter 4: Being
Landlocked with Bad
Neighbors

5. Landlocked Countries

6. “The Geography of Poverty &
Wealth”
• Landlocked Countries/Coastal Access
– Access to oceanic shipping routes/international
trade
• Climate
– Agricultural productivity
– Diseases

7. “The Geography of Poverty &
Wealth”
• Landlocked countries are much poorer than their
coastal counterparts.
– E.g., South America, Mongolia, landlocked areas within
China, and Central Asia including Afghanistan, Tajikistan
and Kirgizstan.
• Transportation costs
– Access to sea trade routes decreases the cost of trade
markedly.
• Regions “near” a sea coast or a sea-navigable waterway benefit.
• Countries with rail or road access also benefit.

8. “The Geography of Poverty &
Wealth”
Climate Zones

9. “The Geography of Poverty &
Wealth”
• Agricultural Productivity
– Maize/corn and rice are generally more productive
in temperate regions.
• One hectare of land in tropics yields 2.3 metric tons of
maize compared to 6.4 tons in temperate regions.
– Africa has great variability in rainfall making it
susceptible to drought.
• The 2011 famine in the Horn of Africa (mostly Somalia)
is a result of this.

10. “The Geography of Poverty & Wealth”
• Disease*/illness are a tremendous impediment to
development.
• Diseases are much more prevalent in tropical and
subtropical regions.
– Malaria is carried by mosquitoes year round in tropical
regions.
– Helminthic infections (parasitic worms) often come from dirty
water; hot weather compounds the growth of bacteria and
parasites.
*We will discuss disease at length during our next module: Global Health Crises.

11. Guns, Germs and Steel
• Development is the product
of a complex system of
geographical preconditions.
• The book was turned into a
three-episode documentary
by the same name in 2005.
(We’ll watch episode 1 and
part of episode 3 in class;
these are available through
Netflix and iTunes for
purchase and possibly for
free with some creative
Googling.)

12. Colonial Origins of
Development
• This seminal paper has
recently been developed
into the book Why Nations
Fail.
• Colonial origins, more
precisely “institutions,”
determine patterns of
development.
• We’ll discuss the role of
institutions in development
in Module 6: Institutions.

13. Colonial Origins of
Development
• Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2001) and
Why Nations Fail provide a critic to the role of
geography in development.
• If geography is so important, why are there
geographic regions with the same preconditions
but drastically different development patterns?
– Nogales, Arizona (USA) vs. Nogales, Sonora (Mexico)
– North Korea vs. South Korea

14. Colonial Origins of
Development
• North Korea:
– “Extractive” Institutions
– “Juche” state (self-reliant)
– 2014 est. GDP per capita:
$1,800 (PPP adjusted)
• South Korea:
– “Inclusive” Institutions
– Established laws and
property rights
– 2016 est. GDP per capita:
$37,900 (PPP adjusted)

15. Institutions Critique: Colonial
Origin
• Patterns of European settlement, largely determined by disease and
mortality, yield institutional differences that influence development.
• Source: Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2001)