December, 2006

The Basques and Chile

by Lawrence E. Harrison
The Conversation
December 20th, 2006

One factor in Chile’s exceptionalism that has not yet been mentioned is the profound Basque influence starting in the eighteen century. Arnold J. Bauer in Chilean Rural Society (Cambridge University Press, 1975) writes: Between 1701 and 1810, some 24,000 immigrants arrived in Chile from Spain [about doubling the number of Spaniards] and forty-five percent of [...]

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A Plague on Both Your Houses

by Gregory Clark
The Conversation
December 19th, 2006

In my original response I criticized Lawrence Harrison’s advocacy of the key role of culture in growth on the grounds that “in 50 years the agenda of introducing culture into analysis of growth has not advanced one step from the state of the art of the 1950s.” I now feel that I owe equal criticism [...]

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