Working Paper: NBER ID: w16966
Authors: Daron Acemoglu; Simon Johnson; James A. Robinson
Abstract: David Albouy expresses three main concerns about the results in Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2001) on the relationship between potential settler mortality and institutions. First, there is a general concern that there are high mortality outliers, potentially affecting this relationship, with which we agree. However, limiting the effect of outliers has no impact on our substantive results and if anything significantly strengthens them, in fact making them robust to even extreme versions of his other critiques. His second argument that all the data from Latin America and much of the data from Africa, making up almost 60% of our sample, should be dropped is arbitrary - there is a great deal of well-documented comparable information on the mortality of Europeans in those places during the relevant period. His third argument that a "campaign" dummy should be included in the first stage is at odds with the historical record and is implemented inconsistently; even modest corrections undermine his claims.
Keywords: Colonial Origins; Comparative Development; Institutions; Settler Mortality
JEL Codes: E02; N20; O11
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| mortality rates faced by Europeans (N33) | settlement patterns (R23) |
| settlement patterns (R23) | type of institutions established in colonies (I29) |
| lower mortality rates (I14) | inclusive institutions (D02) |
| higher mortality rates (I12) | extractive institutions (O17) |
| settler mortality (J11) | institutional quality (L15) |
| institutional quality (L15) | economic performance (P17) |