[Geog-dept] FW: Haber to discuss how climate influences government, society

[Carducci, Diane]

FYI
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Haber to discuss how climate influences government, society
Stephen Haber, A.A. and Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor at Stanford University, will speak at 3:30 p.m. Thursday (11/16) about "Climate, Geography, and the Origins of Economic and Political Institutions" at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.  He will discuss why some societies are characterized by innovation, high standards of living, and democratic governance, while other societies are characterized by poverty and autocracy.  Read more and register at https://go.osu.edu/habers

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Globalization Speaker Series

STEPHEN HABER

"Climate, Geography, and the Origins of Economic and Political Institutions"

Thursday, November 06, 2014, 3:30PM - 5:00PM

Mershon Center for International Security Studies
1501 Neil Ave. Columbus, OH 43201





Register here for this event<http://mershoncenter.osu.edu/stephen-haber>



[Stephen Haber]Stephen Haber is the A.A. and Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.  In addition, he is a professor of political science, professor of history, and professor of economics (by courtesy), as well as a senior fellow of both the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Stanford Center for International Development.  He is among Stanford's most distinguished teachers, having been awarded every teaching prize Stanford has to offer.



Haber has spent his academic life investigating the question of why some societies are characterized by innovation, high standards of living, and democratic governance, while other societies are characterized by poverty and autocracy. He is the author or coauthor of five books, and the editor of five more.  His most recent book, (coauthored with Charles Calomiris), Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit, was published by Princeton University Press in 2014. Haber has also published numerous scholarly articles in a wide variety of fields, including economics, political science, history, and law.



Haber is currently at working in two research areas. One focuses on the impact of the U.S. patent system on innovation and competition among firms. The other focuses on the impact of climate and geography on the evolution of societies' fundamental economic and political institutions.

Abstract

Why do democracy, economic development, and high levels of human capital cluster geographically?  The answer is to be found in the ways that societies in the past were able to mitigate the problems of food scarcity and uncertainty.  In those societies where climate the geography allowed farmers to mitigate scarcity and uncertainty through local and regional trade, institutions developed that protected property and contract rights, and economic agents invested in their human capital.  These characteristics favored gains from trade, economic growth, and made democracy more likely to survive. In societies where climate and geography favored the mitigation of scarcity and uncertainty by creating a centralized state that operated a crop insurance system, it was possible to sustain dense populations, but the kind of economic specialization and institutions that protected transactions were less likely to emerge -- and hence per capita income was likely to remain low and democracy was not likely to survive.

In societies in which climate and geography made either the "transactional" or "insurance" type of strategy difficult, population densities remained low, there was little economic specialization, and the function of the state was to control the scarce factor of production--human beings.  Economic growth was unlikely to take place, and democracy was unlikely to survive, in such weakly institutionalized environments.  We use unique geo-coded datasets on the productivity of cereal agriculture, the extent of navigable rivers, the existence of natural harbors, and the probability of aggregate climate shocks to operationalize this theory.


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