Is Geography Destiny?

Is Geography Destiny? Lessons from Latin America is a book written by John Luke Gallup, Alejandro Gaviria, Eduardo Lora and published by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which documents an advanced step of the rediscovery of geography by economists initiated by Paul Krugman in the early 1990s, however in another, more deterministic direction.

Is Geography Destiny? Lessons from Latin America
AuthorJohn Luke Gallup, Alejandro Gaviria, Eduardo Lora, Inter-American Development Bank
SubjectGeography
GenreEconomics
PublisherStanford University Press, The World Bank
Publication date
2003
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages171 pp
ISBN0-8213-5451-5
OCLC270787572
330.98—dc21
LC ClassHC125.G255 2003

Content

Inspired by the works of David Landes, Jared Diamond and Jeffrey Sachs, considered as “champions of the rediscovery of geography”,[1] the book is the result of “a series of studies on the influence of geography on Latin American development”.[2] It is part of the Latin American Development Forum Series sponsored by the IDB, by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and by the World Bank. It is based on nine case studies[3] funded by the IDB’s Latin American Research Network. Suggestions and corrections came from Ricardo Hausmann, chief economist of the IDB.

Gallup, Gaviria and Lora try to discuss how “geography” influences development in Latin America; “geography” is considered as a concept which affects development through physical (productivity of land, rainfall, temperature) and human channels (“location of populations with respect to coasts or urban centers”).[4] For the authors, “'determinism' is a sounder position than skepticism”.[5] The first chapter, an international perspective, is dedicated to countries as “the basic unit of observation” within a horizon of analysis “limited to the past four or five decades”.[6]

In the second chapter, an intranational perspective, the authors analyse “the influence of geography” within Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Brazil, the “Latin American countries with the greatest geographical diversity”.[7] In the last chapter, they propose “policies to overcome the limitations of geography” concerning “regional development”, “research and technology”, “information and market signals”, “urban policies” and “spatial organization”.

Reviews

The book has been translated to Spanish and Portuguese.

Notes and references
  1. GALLUP, GAVIRIA, LORA, 2003, p.1
  2. GALLUP, GAVIRIA, LORA, 2003, p.xiii
  3. written by researchers from: the CIESS-ECONOMETRICA SRL in Bolivia; the Universidad Católica Boliviana; the Fundação Instituto de Pesquisas Econômicas in Brazil; the University of São Paulo; Bitrán y Asociados in Chile; CEDE of the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia; the Centro de Estudios Económicos of El Colegio de México; the Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo in Mexico; and the Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo in Peru
  4. GALLUP, GAVIRIA, LORA, 2003, p.3
  5. GALLUP, GAVIRIA, LORA, 2003, p.2
  6. GALLUP, GAVIRIA, LORA, 2003, p.5.
  7. GALLUP, GAVIRIA, LORA, 2003, p.5
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