Deltas Apart

This study provides an explanation of the different pathways of agricultural change and economic development in north and south Vietnam. It shows that pre-colonial factor endowments conditioned the development of the rice economies of the two deltas in Tonkin and Cochinchina. The study relates to, and deviates from, the new literature on the colonial origins of contemporary development (Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson; Engerman and Sokoloff), and proposes an alternative understanding of how histo