Post War Economics :: Aplia Econ Blog

Brandon Fuller, a regular contributor to Aplia Econ Blog, draws our attention Austan Goolsbee's latest column for Economic Scene at the New York Times.

Goolsbee marshalls evidence that countries can recover from the devastation of war. That is, if they are not "artificial states."

Iraq is an artificial state.

In Fuller's words:

Iraq's artificial borders pose the biggest threat to prosperity because they force a contentious mix of ethnic and religious groups to live within the same national boundaries.

I am reminded of what Milton Friedman had to say about homogeneity of a country's population.