Editor,Allow me to respond to an article that appeared in The New Times of June 28, titled “Book on poverty is worth a look”, by Gituri Mwaura. Sometime back, as part of my studies, I wrote an essay treating more or less the same subject – “Geography versus Institutions in explaining per capita income differences” Understandably, I had to read extensively about the topic. The authors of the book referred to in Mr Mwaura’s article are pro-Geography thesis while there are other authors who argue that Institutions are at the forefront in explaining countries’ per capita income differences. To some extent, the latter thesis (i.e institutions) seems convincing to me. Yes, looking at the map, it is true that poor countries are those in the tropical belt. However, this is not enough to establish causality – i.e saying that being in the tropics caused poor economic performance of those countries in the tropics. This would mean that they are deemed to remain poor.Rather, Jared Diamond in his book Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years, offers another theory – I would say a complementary theory – after which Geographic circumstances played a role in shaping the type and quality of institutions that colonies ended with. He argues that colonizers (Europeans) established extractive institutions in regions where they could not settle due to deadly diseases mainly malaria and yellow fever. This is the case for Africa, Central America, the Caribbean and South Asia; more or less the tropical belt. Contrary, they developed good institutions in regions that were accommodative to them. This is the case for Australia, Canada, United States and New Zealand. As per this theory, Geography played in indirect role while the quality of institutions played a direct role in shaping the economy.Furthermore, a closer look at how some countries in the tropics are economically performing well (you had examples in your article) despite being geographically disadvantaged, one might conclude that there is “an invisible hand” at work in those countries. This is nothing other than the quality of institution.Silas Udahemuka
