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I'd also guess that when a society is just establishing itself (i.e. in the process of moving from 3rd -> 1st world status, to put it crudely), they probably ha
by darawk 6y ago
I'd also guess that when a society is just establishing itself (i.e. in the process of moving from 3rd -> 1st world status, to put it crudely), they probably have a comparatively low number of lawyers to engineers/scientists. This also tends to be a very high growth phase. In other words, there's a correlation/causality problem here, where all societies tend to go through a high growth phase as they urbanize and industralize, and that phase also tends to be under-developed legally relative to the slower growth late phase.
- notahacker 6y agoThis. Whilst the hypothesis is plausible, there are plenty of other reasons for diminishing returns to growth in more developed states which are difficult to distinguish. Skimming through the short paper its basic regression attempts to control for differences in development by including variables for other development indicators, but it's a very small sample skewed by Korea, Japan and especially autocratic-era Taiwan reporting low levels of [formally qualified] lawyers. The authors even comment they 'would be surprised if someone could not come up with a specification to support the opposite conclusion'!