Exceptional Argentina Di Tella, Glaeser and Llach - Thomas Piketty

agricultural pastures and cropland was slightly higher than Australia and more than tripled
Canada's. By 1930, it had fallen to two thirds of Australia and to only 47% above Canada’s.
Of course, both Commonwealth nations enjoyed much higher endowments of other types of
natural capital, such as forestry and mineral resources. These differences could have an
important effect on the ability of these countries to sustain or increase per capita exports,
which in all three cases were dominated almost exclusively by natural capital intensive
products. In fact, productivity in the agricultural and ranching industries did follow quite
closely the level of per capita inputs of agricultural and pastoral endowments (Figure 21).
Beyond its numerous benefits, economic and not, open immigration meant for Argentina that
the advantages of a high level of natural capital, which unavoidably fade with population
growth, did so at a quicker pace.
Figure 19. The evolution of per capita natural wealth in cropland and pasture land: Argentina,
Australia and Canada
140000
120000
100000
80000
60000
40000
Argentina
Australia
20000
Canada
0
1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930
Source: World Bank (2006).