Seems like this study ignores the role of culture. In those societies where freedom and property rights were the norm, technology advanced. Why develop anything if the government will only take it away and redistribute it.
This study ignores the influence of Christianity.
Belief in Christianity eliminates the fear of curses from shamans. Belief in a rational God allows one to believe that rational earthly behavior will have rational outcomes. The invisible monsters lurking behind every tree today are not going to steal his hope in tomorrow.
Christianity also fosters a culture of honesty. Once a person can trust his neighbor to be honest, he no longer needs as much reliance on his clan or tribe. He can reach out to outlying communities. He can make contracts that he trusts will be upheld by his neighbor and honest judges.
Property rights probably would have trouble developing in tropical areas where slash and burn agriculture was the norm. That is clear land with burning, harvest crops a few years until rain and crops rob nutrients, then move on. This actually was the pattern in our own south, where cotton growing kept moving west, leaving the south east impoverished and lacking freedom.
In the great central plains of Russia and Asia, people migrated with the grass, and a number of countries still have nomadic herdsmen, which think in term of grazing rights, but not land holding.
Ask me again after the Bush tax cuts expire.