We explore the relation between historical population density in former colonies and modern income distribution. A theoretical model highlights the potentially opposing effects of native population density on incentives for colonists to conquer or settle in new territories. While an abundant...

We use a new dataset on non-resource GDP to examine the performance of commodity-exporting countries in terms of macroeconomic stability and economic growth in a panel of up to 129 countries during the period 1970-2007. Our main findings are threefold. First, we find that overall government...