Legal origin cannot explain economic growth. Although common law countries have experienced higher growth rates since 1960, this advantage disappears when one controls for the dominant pre-independence colonial power or for human capital in 1960. Legal origin and colonial history are strongly correlated. Nearly all common law countries are former English colonies, and nearly all civil law countries were colonized by France, Spain or Portugal. Therefore, unless one controls for other aspects of colonial policy – such as education – differences between countries are likely to be misattributed to differences in their legal systems. In addition, the process of colonization was not random. Apparent differences in the economic performance of former colonies may be explicable as effects of initial geographic and climatic conditions.