Does Sovereignty Matter for Growth? An Analysis of Growth Rates between 1870 and 1950

This paper is a theoretical and empirical exploration of the connections between sovereignty (or its absence) and growth rates in lagging countries over the period 1870 to 1950. Using a four-fold taxonomy of sovereignty, our estimates of sovereignty differentials for growth rates of per capita income for 1900-1950 show a quantitatively strong positive impact of sovereignty on growth during this period. In a concluding section we draw attention to the strong parallels be-tween the regime created by the World Trade Organization since the early 1990s and the Open Door Treaties that were imposed on the Ottoman Empire, Iran, China and Thailand starting in the early nineteenth century