Eli5: so why is Balkan so poor compared to west europe?
In: Economics
Decades of communist rule / Soviet influence in the region, until around 1990. But then there were years of wars that disrupted ability for the region to develop economically.
Same reason any other country is poor compare to West Europe. They were neither an imperialist colonial power or able to hitchhike imperialism.
1. Centuries long Turkish occupation is one of the main reasons. The countries of the Balkans missed a centuries of technological, cultural, economic and various other development that the rest of Europe went through.
2. Frequent wars. From the wars for the liberation from the Turks, regional wars, the First and Second World Wars, and finally the wars of the 90s.
3. Corruption. The level of corruption at all levels in the Balkans is almost unimaginable.
There are many other reasons, but in my opinion these three are the main ones.
Most of the Balkan lands are quite mountainous. Historically, this makes those regions relatively inconducive to trade due to higher transportation costs (because building roads up/down/through mountains is more expensive, and there are fewer navigable rivers upon which you can barge freight) which therefore hinders wider economic development.
Soviet economic systems through the 20th century didn’t help economic development much either. Sure, there may have been some tech/knowledge transfer between soviet allies, but not really enough to jumpstart any positive feedback loops strong enough to weather the soviet breakup (and the loss of the little planned-economy trade that went with it).
– Turkish occupation had a lot to do with it. There was a period of development during the ottoman period but nothing close to what was happening in Western Europe, even Eastern Europe. Not to mention illiteracy was very high in places formerly occupied by the Ottoman Empire, which reduced investment in human capital. This is probably the base factor.
– There were wars in the western Balkans that devastated their economies. This led to political systems that continued a system of corruption that had already long existed.
– Some countries, namely Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia (in this case it counts as Balkan), were able to undue a lot of this regression by joining the EU. They still fall behind other countries but it’s a step in the right direction.
– The lost and forgotten tend to be Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia. Serbia isn’t much better but it has its own vision and goal going on. The other countries are stuck in a corruption/poverty loop.
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