On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Bryan Caplan wrote:
> Sachs has popularized a strong finding: Distance from the equator
> explains a great deal of the variation in income *levels* between
> countries. The further from the equator, the richer countries are.
> There are also some parallel findings for growth - controlling for other
> factors, growth is slower in the tropics than in temperate zones.
>
> Question: What would controlling for racial composition do to these
> results? Clearly there is high collinearity between race and latitude,
> though modern transportation is weakening the connection. If you do
> both latitude and racial composition, what would happen? Does anyone
> have hard evidence on this?
> --
On a similar topic, what do people on this list think of Jared Diamond's
book "Guns, Germs and Steel"? Although I am not convinced by many of his
arguments (he's just plain wrong in a lot of cases), I found the
book to be very thought provoking.
Alex Robson
UC Irvine
