Deep determinants of economic growth

A survey of the recent literature on cross country development reveals that there is an agreement on the key role played by institutions in explaining variation in the level of income per capita. Rodrik et al. (NBER Working Paper No. w8119, February, 2002) goes further to argue the primacy of institutions over integration and geography in a level accounting framework. The robustness of this result is checked by changing the dependent variable from level to growth and find that the same holds true.