Ethnic fragmentation is a variable increasingly used in the economic literature to explain differences in economic development level, growth or the incidence of conflicts. Nearly all articles have in common that they treat ethnic fragmentation as a static, exogenous fact. Only recently some...

Dutch settlements on the coastal plain locked Guyana into polder agriculture and inadvertently a small widely dispersed population. The former requires high cost for drainage, irrigation and agricultural production. The latter implies the high costs – including the cost of infrastructure –...

This paper examines the long-term economic impacts of the adoption of local knowledge during European colonisation. We use the case of Australia, where Aboriginal knowledge of the landscape was integral to colonial exploration and settlement. To quantify the effects of this knowledge, we...

This paper analyses the connection between legal origins and generalized trust. Based on recent results of institutions and trust research it argues that legal origins and trust are connected via the beliefs of agents. Next, it develops hypotheses about a complex and self-reinforcing causal...

While the direct impact of geographic endowments on prosperity is present in all countries, in former colonies, geography has also affected colonization policies and, therefore, institutional outcomes. Using non-colonized countries as a control group, I develop an empirical strategy that...

While the direct impact of geographic endowments on prosperity is present in all countries, in former colonies, geography has also affected colonization policies and, therefore, institutional outcomes. Using non-colonized countries as a control group, I develop an empirical strategy that...

While the direct impact of geographic endowments on prosperity is present in all countries, in former colonies, geography has also affected colonization policies and, therefore, institutional outcomes. Using non-colonized countries as a control group, I re-examine the theories put forward by La...