I appreciate that you give evidence for how economic growth seems to be a requirement for increases in well being and I think I agree. If I might make one request if you are intending to write more posts on this topic: Could you please include a colonial and even more of a “temporal” angle to growth and well-being? You do go into some detail around skipping the manufacturing “step” and going directly to services. However, my lay understanding of the topic is that it somehow seemed much easier for the “colonizing” nations to move beyond agriculture and achieve both growth and increases in well-being than it today does for LMICs. Currently, it seems like an uphill struggle for previous colonies to do the same. Is there some sort of temporal thing going on here where the “colonizing” nations had some sort of first-mover advantage? Perhaps I missed something by only reading quickly through your article—perhaps most of you analysis only focuses on what we know about growth in previous colonies, after colonization ended, for example.
One reason for commenting is that I recently read a book both on the famines in India under British rule as well as another book on China under Mao. In both instances, it seems economic structural reform was pushed forcefully and urgently from the top which as we know lead to two of the greatest disasters in history. Thus, I would, without deep knowledge of the topic, be very careful advocating strongly for general economic reforms across many countries as we could end up having a net negative outcome, just based on historical priors. I would, as a lay economist and historian, feel more confident about a portfolio of interventions that have been crafted to fit with the local context and strategic environment a country currently finds itself in.
I’m not super interested in stories of growth that put a large emphasis on history, not because I think they’re wrong, but because they don’t offer a lot of practical advice for today. There are a thousand and one papers showing that colonial legacies affect development today, but I don’t see how they help think about increasing growth today. Certainly, I wouldn’t completely generalize from the growth experience of the West, and almost all of the research I cover is about current LMICs or about late industrializers in East Asia.
I agree that advocating strongly for general economic reforms—call it the Lant Pritchett view—is not a useful path. The Pritchett view seems like the only one that EAs know about, which is a big part of my motivation for writing this. Rather than big claims about “growth” as a singular phenomenon, I want to break it down into more granular factors.
Edit: in response to your direct question about whether there’s a first mover advantage, the story is mixed. There’s a lot of evidence that colonial legacies hold countries back today, especially in Africa. On the other hand there’s strong reasons to believe that new technologies are the drivers of growth, and poor countries today have the advantage that they don’t need to reinvent all modern technology—they have all the advantages of frontier knowledge. The net effect of this is so vague as to be unanswerable.
As a concrete example, think about London’s campaign to end cholera in the 19th century. Compared to countries with cholera problems today, those people didn’t even know what caused disease. There were all kinds of crazy views about the causes of disease that made eradicating cholera a difficult task. On the other hand, Britain had a pretty effective state that could enforce public health regulations, and a good scientific establishment that could study the problem. Poor countries today have 1000x more knowledge than rich countries did a century ago, but have all kinds of problems with turning that knowledge into prosperity.
Thanks for your super thoughtful response Karthik. It seems you are aware (perhaps not unsurprisingly!) of the issues I raised and I appreciate your clarification on the “Lant Pritchett view”. I also like your optimism in not focusing on historical wrongs, but rather trying to see what advantages LMICs can leverage. I look forward to your future posts and to learning more about a perhaps more nuanced and effective take on growth as a cause area.
I appreciate that you give evidence for how economic growth seems to be a requirement for increases in well being and I think I agree. If I might make one request if you are intending to write more posts on this topic: Could you please include a colonial and even more of a “temporal” angle to growth and well-being? You do go into some detail around skipping the manufacturing “step” and going directly to services. However, my lay understanding of the topic is that it somehow seemed much easier for the “colonizing” nations to move beyond agriculture and achieve both growth and increases in well-being than it today does for LMICs. Currently, it seems like an uphill struggle for previous colonies to do the same. Is there some sort of temporal thing going on here where the “colonizing” nations had some sort of first-mover advantage? Perhaps I missed something by only reading quickly through your article—perhaps most of you analysis only focuses on what we know about growth in previous colonies, after colonization ended, for example.
One reason for commenting is that I recently read a book both on the famines in India under British rule as well as another book on China under Mao. In both instances, it seems economic structural reform was pushed forcefully and urgently from the top which as we know lead to two of the greatest disasters in history. Thus, I would, without deep knowledge of the topic, be very careful advocating strongly for general economic reforms across many countries as we could end up having a net negative outcome, just based on historical priors. I would, as a lay economist and historian, feel more confident about a portfolio of interventions that have been crafted to fit with the local context and strategic environment a country currently finds itself in.
I’m not super interested in stories of growth that put a large emphasis on history, not because I think they’re wrong, but because they don’t offer a lot of practical advice for today. There are a thousand and one papers showing that colonial legacies affect development today, but I don’t see how they help think about increasing growth today. Certainly, I wouldn’t completely generalize from the growth experience of the West, and almost all of the research I cover is about current LMICs or about late industrializers in East Asia.
I agree that advocating strongly for general economic reforms—call it the Lant Pritchett view—is not a useful path. The Pritchett view seems like the only one that EAs know about, which is a big part of my motivation for writing this. Rather than big claims about “growth” as a singular phenomenon, I want to break it down into more granular factors.
Edit: in response to your direct question about whether there’s a first mover advantage, the story is mixed. There’s a lot of evidence that colonial legacies hold countries back today, especially in Africa. On the other hand there’s strong reasons to believe that new technologies are the drivers of growth, and poor countries today have the advantage that they don’t need to reinvent all modern technology—they have all the advantages of frontier knowledge. The net effect of this is so vague as to be unanswerable.
As a concrete example, think about London’s campaign to end cholera in the 19th century. Compared to countries with cholera problems today, those people didn’t even know what caused disease. There were all kinds of crazy views about the causes of disease that made eradicating cholera a difficult task. On the other hand, Britain had a pretty effective state that could enforce public health regulations, and a good scientific establishment that could study the problem. Poor countries today have 1000x more knowledge than rich countries did a century ago, but have all kinds of problems with turning that knowledge into prosperity.
Thanks for your super thoughtful response Karthik. It seems you are aware (perhaps not unsurprisingly!) of the issues I raised and I appreciate your clarification on the “Lant Pritchett view”. I also like your optimism in not focusing on historical wrongs, but rather trying to see what advantages LMICs can leverage. I look forward to your future posts and to learning more about a perhaps more nuanced and effective take on growth as a cause area.