Can geography lock a society in stagnation?

Abstract

We extend Galor and Weil (2000) by including geographical factors in order to show that under some initial conditions, an economy may be locked in Malthusian stagnation and never take off. Specifically, we characterize the set of geographical factors for which this happens, and this way we show how the interplay of the available “land”, its suitability for living, and its degree of isolation, determines whether an economy can escape stagnation.