Abstract: We study the effects of pre-colonial institutions on present-day socioeconomic outcomes for Latin America. Our thesis is that more advanced pre-colonial institutions relate to better socioeconomic outcomes today. We advance that pre-colonial institutions survived to our days thanks to the existence of largely self-governed Amerindian communities in rural Latin America. Amerindians groups with more advanced institutional capacity would have been able to organize and defend their interests in front of national governments; leading to better development outcomes for themselves and for the population at large. We test our thesis with a dataset of 324 sub-national administrative units covering all mainland Latin American countries. Our extensive range of controls covers factors such as climate, location, natural resources, colonial activities and pre-colonial characteristics – plus country fixed effects. Results strongly support our thesis.
Keywords: Latin America, Institutions, Pre-colonial factors, Amerindians, Long-run development
JEL Codes: O11, O43
Cite as: Luis Angeles, Aldo Elizalde. Pre-colonial institutions and socioeconomic development: The case of Latin America. Journal of Development Economics, Volume 124, 2017, Pages 22-40.
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