Molson Hart

China seems like an extremely strong counterexample.

You sure? Country was totally destroyed under Mao. It's been building from almost scratch since.

Okay we need to define variables. Are we talking empty lands in a abstract or concrete sense because housing in China is impossibly expensive and has been for a while

Mostly abstract as per @Pete21083's reply. Concrete either historically because before the industrial revolution there was not much else but land, or during a complete rebuilt like China after Mao or EU after WWII when you sort of made a country empty.

1. Land prices. I don't think cheap land is all that important. Plus, it tends to be correlated with lack of economy dynamism. Even after controlling for that, it doesn't matter. Sure SV is more expensive today than 10 years ago, but 10 years ago it was fucking expensive!

The most valuable new companies in the world are getting build where land is expensive, not cheap. When you raise the type of money necessary to build a billion dollar startup you can pay $10k/month in personal rent.

2. Cheap land in the abstract sense. One of the most powerful, replicate-able effects in psychology is anchoring. This manifests itself in effort and ambition. Whether it's an immigrant who sees how much more he earns per hour in America vs. his home country or a 1st generation

American, seeing how much better off he is than his parents who toiled, day-in and day-out in their laundromat so he could be the first in his family to attend an ivy league school. That matters a lot for motivation. It might be driving China's resurgence now in fact.