African development in an era of climate change

Poverty is not a viable climate strategy

I: Climate shocks and economic development

In a new Carnegie paper, Laurence Chandy raises an interesting question about the “deep” determinants of economic development:

A rich literature has sought to identify the “deep determinants” that best explain comparative economic performance over the long term. That search has increasingly boiled down to a focus on geography and institutions. A country’s geography affects its economy through multiple channels including agricultural productivity, disease vectors, and proximity to markets. A country’s institutions, defined here as the rules and norms that govern society—including those imposed by external actors—affect the incentives individuals face to engage individually or collectively in productive activity. Which of the two is the dominant factor cannot be definitively resolved empirically, and so it is partly a matter of opinion. Nevertheless, the majority opinion, and the weight of evidence, backs institutions.

Could climate change shift t…