Jeffrey Sachs
American development economist at Columbia (previously Harvard). Best known in the public sphere for shock-therapy reform advocacy in post-Soviet states and for the Millennium Villages Project; in the Great Divergence literature, relevant for a long series of papers arguing that geographic and disease-environment factors — latitude, tropical-zone status, endemic malaria and other pathogens — explain significant cross-country variation in long-run growth and development, partially independent of institutional quality. The Sachs-Gallup-Mellinger 2001 paper and related work have been influential in development economics debates, though widely contested (notably by Acemoglu and Robinson) on whether the geographic effects survive controls for institutions.
Associated positions
Section titled “Associated positions”- Geography & disease environment — leading contemporary voice for geographic-determinist arguments in quantitative form.
Key works
Section titled “Key works”- With John Luke Gallup and Andrew Mellinger: “Geography and Economic Development” (International Regional Science Review, 1999).
- The End of Poverty (2005).
- Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008).