A 2015 World Bank report on attainment of Millennium Development Goals concludes that the number of extremely poor has dropped substantially in all regions with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa. We assess if poverty is in the African gene by revisiting the findings of Ashraf and Galor (2013, AER) and reformulating the ‘Out of Africa Hypothesis’ into a ‘Genetic Diversity Hypothesis’ for a ‘Within Africa Analysis’. We motivate this reformulation with five shortcomings arising for the most part from the 2015 findings of the African Gerome Variation Project, notably: limitations in the concept of space, African dummy in genetic diversity, linearity in migratory patterns, migratory origins and underpinnings of genetic diversity in Africa. Ashraf and Galor have concluded that cross-country differences in development can be explained by genetic diversity in a Kuznets pattern. Our results from an exclusive African perspective confirm the underlying hypothesis in a contemporary context, but not in the historical analysis. From a historical context, the nexus is U-shaped for migratory distance, mobility index and predicted diversity while for the contemporary analysis; it is hump-shaped for ancestry-adjusted predicted diversity. Hence, poverty is not in the African gene from a within-Africa comparative standpoint. Policy implications are discussed.

Is Poverty in the African DNA (Gene)

The Glorious Revolution of 1688–9 transformed the role of parliament in Britain and its empire. Large numbers of statutes resulted, with most concerning economic activity. Julian Hoppit here provides the first comprehensive account of these acts, revealing how government affected economic life in this critical period prior to the Industrial Revolution, and how economic interests across Britain used legislative authority for their own benefit. Through a series of case studies, he shows how ideas, interests, and information influenced statutory action in practice. Existing frameworks such as 'mercantilism' and the 'fiscal-military state' fail to capture the full richness and structural limitations of how political power influenced Britain's precocious economic development in the period. Instead, finely grained statutory action was the norm, guided more by present needs than any grand plan, with regulatory ambitions constrained by administrative limitations, and some parts of Britain benefiting much more than others.

Britain's Political Economies: Parliament and Economic Life, 1660–1800

The developmental state is associated with the leading role played by the government in promoting industrialization in Japan and East Asia in the post-World War II era. Their respective governments pursued a series of policies, including tariff protection, subsidies, and other types of controls aimed at developing selected productive sectors of economic activity. Fundamental to the design of the developmental state for these countries was the creation of an alliance between politics and the economy, which materialized in the establishment of a specialized bureaucratic apparatus that had ample powers and coordinated the developmental efforts, at least in their initial stages. The developmental state and its associated policies are not unique to Japan or East Asia. A similar type of model, albeit a more restrictive one, was also followed in Latin America during the period that lasted from the end of World War II to the beginning of the 1960s and, in some cases, the 1970s. During this time, the state intervened in a number of areas and indeed made use of fiscal, exchange rate, monetary, and sectoral policies to promote the industrialization of Latin America. Neither are developmental state policies a feature limited to the twen tieth century. European countries used the same policies throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the United States during the

The Concept and Evolution of the Developmental State

Calculated values: The politics and epistemology of economic numbers in Britain, 1688-1738

Enlightened Dissent: The voices of anti-imperialism in eighteenth century Britain” Author: Andrew Gaiero Supervisor: Richard Connors Submission Year: 2016 This dissertation explores and analyzes anti-imperial sentiments in Britain throughout the long eighteenth century. During this period of major British state formation and imperial expansion, there were a surprisingly large number of observers who voiced notable and varied concerns and opposition towards numerous overseas ventures, yet who have not since received significant attention within the historical record. Indeed, many critics of British imperialism and empire-building, from within Britain itself, formed extensive and thoughtful assessments of their own nation’s conduct in the world. Criticism ranged widely, from those who opposed the high economic costs of imperial expansion to those worried that a divine retribution would rain down upon Britain for injustices committed by Britons abroad. Such diversity of anti-imperial perspectives came from a clearly enlightened minority, whose limited influences upon broader public opinions had little effect on policies at the time. Successive British administrations and self-interested Britons who sought their fortunes and adventures abroad, often with little regard for the damage inflicted on those whom they encountered, won the political debate over empirebuilding. However, in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, the perspectives of many of these individuals would increasingly become highly regarded. Later generations of reformers, particularly “Little Englanders”, or classical liberals and radicals, would look back reverently to these critics to draw inspiration for refashioning the empire and Britain’s position in the world. These eighteenth century ideas continued to present powerful counter-arguments to the trends then in place and served to inspire those, in the centuries that followed, who sought to break the heavy chains of often despotic colonial rule and mitigate the ravages of war and conquest.

https://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/34962/1/Gaiero_Andrew_2016_thesis.pdf

E. A. J. Johnson

Papers

Predecessors of Adam Smith. The Growth of British Economic Thought.