What matters how: institutions, human capital? Or: what Malaria might tell you about your development

Is it that a sound political framework with stable and persistant instutions contribute to economic growth, or are, alternatively, sound institutions merely an by-product of a development process that relies primarliy on human and social capital which spurs economic growth (and which leads to more benign regimes through accomodating people by higher and growing incomes)?

The first, institutional approach has diverse followers (depending where you stand, you might wanna include Montesquieu, Buchanan, Tullock, but certainly Easterly/Levine, Dollar/Kray, North and probably also Rodrik and associates).
This logic predicts that political institutions and limited government cause economic growth, and lead to pro-investment policies.

The latter approach may reach out to Aristotle (or at least S.M. Lipset) in the belief that educated people are more inclined to resolve issues peacefully through negotiation than through violence. Key themes are literacy, human and social capital (sounds a bit like Pierre Bourdieu?) - but NOT necessarily good governance and political participation/democracy (cf. the examples of dictator-led South Korea before the 1980s, pseudo-democratic Singapore, Taiwan before 1980s etc.). Subsequently over the years of economic growth the regimes may turn more democratic, or may at least improve its institutional structure.

Common to both approaches are apparently the emphasis on property rights which are supportive for human and physical capital formation, and some sort of competition.

Glaeser et al. seem to support the second logic, but along the way, things aren't as clear as one want them to be. Suddenly, Acemoglu's approach reemerges: European settlers have taken with them their institutional visions/traditions and depending which conditions they found in colonies, they developed exploitative institutions (i.e. if the region was densely populated by locals already) or gov-constraining ones (i.e. if they settled in low-density areas) that caused long-run growth.
One is then not far away anymore of the 'Geographic factors matter'-school of thought (old, but reemerged due to Jeffrey Sachs). Following Sachs's brief analysis (NBER Working Paper 9490) defends geographic factors by doing a regression with a Malaria variable that suggests that ecological conditions directly affect the level of p.a. income after controlling for institutional quality.
And this is just the beginning: there are many more strands of thinking about what factors matter how and in which way(s) run causalities....
Gaudeamus igitur.

basing on:
Glaeser, E.L., La Porta, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F. & Shleifer, A. (2004). Do Institutions Cause Growth? In: Journal of Economic Growth, Vol. 9, pp. 271-303.

Sachs, J. (2003). Institutions Don't Rule: Direct Effects of Geography on Per Capita Income. NBER Working Paper 9490.