Ebook Geography and Economic Development in Colombia: A Municipal Approach
Recent economic debate has reopened the old question of the wealth and poverty of nations. The answer to this question involves all aspects of human life: education, religion, institutions, technology, the diffusion of knowledge and, more recently, geography. The latter, it is said, has contributed to shaping the destiny of nations and their people (although not inescapably). For instance, Diamond (1999) states “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among people’s environments.”
The idea that geographical and environmental factors have influenced social development is not new. Landes (1999) argues that European economic advantages are the result, in part, of the favorable rainfall patterns and mild seasonal differences that allowed Europeans to raise bigger and better animals than those of other lands. Larger animals brought the agricultural, transport and military advantages that reinforced Western European economic leadership for several centuries. Geography has clearly had some effect on the shaping of the economic history of countries and regions. However, the amount by which geographical factors affect current income per capita and economic development variations is a question that is beginning to be answered. In this paper we will attempt to establish an answer to this question in terms of Colombian inter-regional income per capita variations.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of geographical and other social and economic variables (human capital, infrastructure and living standards) on income per capita, income per capita growth, density of population and population growth at the municipal level. This reasons for this approach include the following:
- a) The geographical differences within Colombian departments are many, making departmental averages of certain variables meaningless. For example, the temperature of Cundinamarca (a department located in the center of the country, and one of its richest regions) varies from very hot in some places to freezing cold in others.
b) The great differences in the provision of social services and infrastructure across the departments.
c) The localization of particular types of business (manufacturing, mining, coffee, etc.), which may have important effects on income level variations among municipalities of the same department or region.
Furthermore, given the considerable number of Colombian municipalities, it was possible to include a large set of explanatory variables in the econometric exercises, the variables being taken from economic literature related to income and growth. Generally, many of these variables are absent from departmentally based Colombian regional growth studies due to both small sample size (22 to 30 observations) and free access problems.
This paper attempts to explain the root cause of the differences, both for the level and rate of growth of income per capita, and for the population density of Colombian municipalities between 1973 and 1995. The paper is divided into nine sections. The first is the introduction. Section Two describes some of Colombia’s geographical characteristics. Section Three presents the data sources and explains the construction process of the geographical variables. Section Four analyzes the econometric studies of income and population growth rates. Section Five examines the effects of geography on municipal income per capita; Section Six its effect on municipal income per capita growth; and Section Seven its importance in terms of population density and growth. Section Eight determines the effect of geography on inter-regional income differences and municipal income inequalities. Section Nine concludes.
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Colombian Geographical Features and Statistics
3. Data Sources and the Construction of Variables
4. Municipal Per Capita Income Growth
5. Geography and Per Capita Income
6. Geography and Per Capita Income Growth
7. Geography, Population and Population Growth
8. The Sources of Differences in Per Capita Income and Economic Growth
9. Conclusions
10. Bibliography
11. Appendices
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