Re:Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic
by dimitar on Thursday July 22, 2021 @06:40AM
(#27917364)
Well, for 150 years they were similar in per capita income (and everything else really) and they started diverging in the 60s and 70s. And you also have another non-Hispanic country in Jamaica that has taken a different path compared to Haiti in the same period: https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/haiti/jamaica?s...
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You'd expect per capita income to lag though, right? If a country is investing in modernization (especially, in it's people via education, etc), that's a 30+ year payoff from start.
Granted, 150 is a lot, but you'd expect some convergence before divergence.
I was looking at generation size and life expectancy per country to tease that out further, and there's a surprising gap between Haiti [0] and the DR [1], going back to 1950, that has persisted. Couldn't find earlier.
Both are increasing, but using life expectancy as a proxy for economic power (people spend on it as a priority, etc), Haiti appears to have started from a much lower base.
[0] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/HTI/haiti/life-expecta...
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/DOM/dominican-republic...