Positional Geography and National Income: A Global Test of Geography’s Pathways to State Power

Abstract This study examines the relationship between positional geography and national economic capacity by testing classical geopolitical claims about the geographic foundations of state power. It asks whether structural geographic characteristics are systematically associated with differences in economic size and income levels across countries and whether these relationships remain robust after accounting for human capital and institutional quality. Using cross-national data for 193 UN member states, we evaluate six geographic factors, open-sea access, market access, absolute latitude, temperate climate share, state area, and agricultural land share, against two indicators of economic capacity: total GDP and GDP per capita. We estimate OLS models and augment geographic specifications with controls for mean years of schooling and regulatory quality. The results show that open-sea access, market access, and temperate climate share remain positive and significant predictors of both GDP per capita and total GDP after accounting for human capital and institutional quality. Territorial area is positively associated with aggregate output but not with per capita income, while agricultural land share is negatively associated with income levels. Human capital emerges as the strongest predictor overall. These findings indicate that geographic characteristics exhibit systematic probabilistic associations with economic outcomes.