Brown economists: Ancestral history explains roots of income inequality

"He demonstrated tht [sic] the number of years since a society made the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is highly correlated to the level of income in the country today. That is, the earlier the agriculture development, the higher the income."

Or exactly the other way around - the better the person is at producing, the earlier they managed to switch to agriculture. Or in less politically correct terms, the smarter the people, the more they make today, and the earlier they managed to figure out agriculture.

"Second, the influence of population origins suggests that there is something that human families and communities transmit from generation to generation — perhaps a form of economic culture, a set of attitudes or beliefs, or informally transmitted capabilities — that is of at least similar importance to economic success as are more widely recognized factors like quantities of physical capital and even human capital in the narrower sense of formal schooling. If we understand which culturally transmitted factors are important and what contributes to their emergence and propagation, we might be able to design policy interventions that could help less successful groups and countries to close their developmental gaps."

Uh hu. Or maybe they are just smarter, and intelligence is heritable.

But they can't say that since it basically means that there is nothing poor counties can do, except encourage immigration and intermarriage. So they make a fluff feel-good conclusion.

Not really. Europeans essentially invaded and colonized the western hemisphere, Africa, India, Australia, etc... and yet none of the reverse happened. The Aztecs did not land on the shores of Spain. The Zulu did not invade France. (About the closest you can point to is the Turks besieging Vienna.) If you've ever wondered why europe dominated the new world & africa and not vice versa, I highly recommend Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel."