Geography, cultural remoteness and the second nature of within-country economic development: do island regions lag behind?

Geography, cultural remoteness and the second nature of within-country economic development: do island regions lag behind? Regional Studies. Using a unique dataset that encompasses island regions worldwide (76 regions) and all the other regions of the countries (22 countries) to which they belong (474 regions in total), we document that the within-country gross domestic product (GDP) per capita delay of island regions(on average –21.7% of their national mean), while not explained by regional (neither geographical nor cultural) distance to the (neither global nor local) frontier of economic development, i.e., remoteness, is associated with ‘second-nature’ regional factors (human capital and institutional quality) not specific to island regions. However, the condition of being an island is strongly associated with worst second-nature characteristics. © 2017 Regional Studies Association.