Why nations fail : the origins of power, prosperity, and poverty
Daron Acemoglu (Author), James A. Robinson (Author)
Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography, or perhaps ignorance of the right policies? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. In this book the authors show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Based on fifteen years of original research, they marshal historical evidence from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union, from Korea to Africa, to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? Is America moving from a virtuous circle, in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted, to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? Is it through more philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West, or learning lessons on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions?
Print Book, English, 2013
Curency, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, 2013
xi, 529 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 21 cm
9780307719225, 0307719227
1014339932
Why Egyptians filled Tahrir Square to bring down Hosni Mubarak and what it means for our understanding of the causes of prosperity and poverty
1. So close and yet so different
Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, have the same people, culture, and geography. Why is one rich and one poor?
2. Theories that don't work
Poor countries are poor not because of their geographies or cultures, or because their leaders do not know which policies will enrich their citizens
3. The making of prosperity and poverty
How prosperity and poverty are determined by the incentives created by institutions, and how politics determines what institutions a nation has
4. Small differences and critical junctures: the weight of history
How institutions change through political conflict and how the past shapes the present
5. "I've seen the future, and it works": growth under extractive institutions
What Stalin, King Shyaam, the Neolithic Revolution, and the Maya city-states all had in common and how this explains why China's current economic growth cannot last
6. Drifting apart
How institutions evolve over time, often slowly drifting apart
7. The turning point
How a political revolution in 1688 changed institutions in England and led to the Industrial Revolution
8. Not on our turf: barriers to development
Why the politically powerful in many nations opposed the Industrial Revolution
9. Reversing development
How European colonialism impoverished large parts of the world
10. The diffusion of prosperity
How some parts of the world took different paths to prosperity from that of Britain
11. The virtuous circle
How institutions that encourage prosperity create positive feedback loops that prevent the efforts by elites to undermine them
12. The vicious circle
How institutions that create poverty generate negative feedback loops and endure
13. Why nations fail today
Institutions, institutions, institutions
14. Breaking the mold
How a few countries changed their economic trajectory by changing their institutions
15. Understanding prosperity and poverty
How the world could have been different and how understanding this can explain why most attempts to combat poverty have failed