A few professors at NYU have published a paper describing the linkage between current GDP and population with historical adoption of technology dating back to 1500BC. To no one's surprise, those areas that adopted technology earliest tend to be better off today. The tendency is most pronounced for AD1500, but still obtains at the earliest data point, 1000BC.
Anyone who has played any of the Civilization games (I'm currently stuck on Civ IV) could have told you that.
Posted by ryan at February 27, 2007 1:01 PM | TrackBack