TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bloom,David E.
AU  - Canning,David
AU  - Sevilla,Jaypee
TI  - The Wealth of Nations: Fundamental Forces Versus Poverty Traps
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8714
PY  - 2002
Y2  - January 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8714
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8714.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David E. Bloom
Harvard School of Public Health
Department of Global Health and Population
665 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617/432-0866
Fax: 617/432-6733
E-Mail: dbloom@hsph.harvard.edu

David Canning
Harvard School of Public Health
Department of Global Health and Population
665 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617/432-6336
Fax: 617/566-0365
E-Mail: dcanning@hsph.harvard.edu

Jaypee Sevilla
Department of Population & Int'l Health
Harvard School of Public Health
Building I, Room 1210d
665 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617/432-4054
E-Mail: jsevilla@hsph.harvard.edu
AB  - We test the view the large differences in income levels we see across the world are due to differences in underlying characteristics, i.e. fundamental forces, against the alternative that there are poverty traps. Taking geographical variables as fundamental characteristics, we find that we can reject fundamental forces in favor of a poverty trap model with high and low level equilibria. The high level equilibrium state is found to be the same for all countries while income in the low level equilibrium, and the probability of being in the high level equilibrium, are greater in cool, coastal countries with high, year- round, rainfall.
ER  -