Question: where are the less prosperous countries of europe located

title: Geography and wealth
text: In `` Climate and Scale in Economic Growth , '' William A. Masters and Margaret S. McMillan of Purdue University and Tufts University hypothesize that the disparity is partially due to the effects of frost in increasing soil fertility . Hernando Zuleta , of the Universidad del Rosario , has proposed that where output fluctuations are more profound , i.e. areas that experience winter , saving is more pronounced , which leads to the adoption or creation of capital - intensive technologies . Daron Acemoglu , Simon Johnson , and James A. Robinson of MIT argued in 2001 that in places where Europeans faced high mortality rates , they could not settle and were more likely to set up exploitative institutions . These institutions offered no protection for private property or checks and balances against government expropriation . They assert that after controlling for the effect of institutions , countries in Africa or those closer to the equator do not have lower incomes . This work has been disputed by David Albouy , who argues that European mortality rates in the study were badly mismeasured , falsely supporting its conclusion . The authors of `` Brain size , cranial morphology , climate , and time machines '' assert that colder climates increase brain size , resulting in an intelligence differential .