Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities: Do They Matter for Economic Development?
研究发现，美洲国家内部发展差异部分源于殖民时期的不同经济活动，依赖劳动剥削的“坏”活动导致今天更低的发展水平，而政治代表权的差异可能是中间机制。
Levels of development vary widely within countries in the Americas. We argue that part of this variation has its roots in the colonial era, when colonizers engaged in different economic activities in different regions of a country. We present evidence consistent with the view that “bad” activities (those that depended heavily on labor exploitation) led to lower economic development today than “good” activities (those that did not rely on labor exploitation). Our results also suggest that differences in political representation (but not in income inequality or human capital) could be the intermediating factor between colonial activities and current development. © 2012 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.