North and South
The first two reading selections for Economics 344 make some notable observations about the growth and development of budding economies. In Engerman and Sokoloff's chapter entitled "Factor Endowments, Institutions, and Differential Paths of Growth Among New World Economies," the authors compare the economic growth levels of the North American colonies to those of Latin American colonies. Then, in "Tracking the Economic Divergence of the North and the South," Peter Coclanis notes the different economic paths taken by these two distinct regions of the United States. Overall, these two essays are similar in nature - they make similar comparisons across two regions using similar criteria. The readings, however, differ drastically in their subject matter and in the scope of the comparisons. In the first reading, Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff attempt to explain what factors contributed to the different levels of economic development between the North American colonies and the Latin American colonies. They hypothesize that the United States and Canada were able to sustain economic growth due to factor endowments that were superior to those of Central and South America. Endowments such as climate, soil, and density of th
They were not entirely specialized in one area of crop production. The bulk of the similarities lie in the nature of the essays and the methods and criteria used to draw comparisons. Institutions and political policies, the authors say, did not influence these factor endowments; rather, the factor endowments were primarily responsible and were perpetuated by political tendencies. A second significant likeness between the two readings lies in the fact that they both focused largely on one aspect - factor endowments - in trying to explain the gaps in economic growth. Indeed, the discussion of the South in the second reading closely resembles the discussion of Latin America in the first essay. Despite these distinctions, in the end, the authors conclude that overall, "the South's economy was a unique case and ultimately realized a record of growth more like those of the northern United States or Canada. Thus we see another fundamental similarities between the two articles - both attribute superior economic growth to similar factors known as factor endowments. For example, Engerman and Sokoloff state that the colonies that succeeded economically, the so-called category three colonies, had certain characteristics in common. Although it is perhaps due to this very difference in scope, the two articles view the South and its relative economic prosperity very differently. Where the first reading takes the United States as a whole, the second breaks it up and looks at its specific regions in more detail. The two are extremely similar in that they both have the same main goal; that is, to compare the economic growth trends across two different regions while attempting to discern what factors were responsible for these differences. After comparing the prosperous colonies to the less prosperous, the authors then briefly state differences within the United States colonies as far as economic growth is concerned. Simultaneously, he discusses the North's diverse and flexible enterprise system, its non-reliance on slave labor, its equal distribution of wealth, and its relative equality. The two readings share both remarkable similarities as well as sharp differences. While Engerman and Sokoloff downplay the North-South divide, Coclanis concludes that differences were more abundant than similarities between the two regions.
Common topics in this essay:
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South Coclanis,
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,
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Acceptance Essays
