The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development (Acemoglu, Johnson, Robinson) on “Stuff I Keep Rereading”, a list by Malik Torres on TheLysts.
Details
Photo
—
Name
—
Field
Political economy / development
Core idea
Uses settler mortality as an instrument to show how colonial institutions shape modern income levels.
Year
2001
How dense
High – instrumental variables plus long historical detour.
My take
The exact moment when IVs went from “annoying exam topic” to “ok, that’s kind of powerful.” Also, impossible to unsee once you look at those scatterplots.
TheLysts
