American Economic Review· 2012Q1
The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation: Reply
- 6,146citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2012year
Short summary
This reply argues that criticisms of the 2001 Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson paper on colonial origins of development are not robust, as they rely on dropping significant data and inconsistent coding.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Criticism of the 2001 paper relies on dropping almost 60% of the sample data (Latin America, Africa).
- The critique uses a 'campaign' dummy variable that is coded inconsistently.
- The authors demonstrate that even minor corrections to the critique's methods invalidate its conclusions.
- Limiting the effect of outliers strengthens the original findings, making them robust to critiques.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001) established that economic institutions today are correlated with expected mortality of European colonialists. David Albouy argues this relationship is not robust. He drops all data from Latin America and much of the data from Africa, making up almost 60 percent of our sample, despite much information on the mortality of Europeans in those places during the colonial period. He also includes a “campaign” dummy that is coded inconsistently; even modest corrections undermine his claims. We also show that limiting the effect of outliers strengthens our results, making them robust to even extreme versions of Albouy's critiques. (JEL D02, E23, F54, I12, N40, O43, P14)
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. American Economic Review, 2012 · DOI ↗
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Field: Demography
DemographySocial Sciences