Evaluates the reasons that some nations are poor while others succeed, outlining provocative perspectives that support theories about the importance of institutions. - (Baker & Taylor)
An award-winning professor of economics at MIT and a Harvard University political scientist and economist evaluate the reasons that some nations are poor while others succeed, outlining provocative perspectives that support theories about the importance of institutions. - (Baker & Taylor)
Why are rich nations rich and poor nations poor? Acemoglu (economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Robinson (government, Harvard U.) proffer a very simple answer: because poor nations are ruled by narrow elites uninterested in promoting the economic welfare of the country as a whole, while rich nations have experienced fundamental transformations in their political institutions (they offer England's Glorious Revolution of 1688 as exemplary) where the people have won more political rights and thereby were able to expand their economic opportunities. They provide a general account of the processes that underlie this phenomenon, drawing examples from world history as illustration of their points. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) - (Book News)
Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: 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? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?
Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities.
The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.
Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and 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?
- Are America’s best days behind it? Are we 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? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions?
Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world. - (Random House, Inc.)
Daron Acemoglu is the Killian Professor of Economics at MIT. In 2005 he received the John Bates Clark Medal awarded to economists under forty judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. He is also the co-author of The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty.
James A. Robinson, a political scientist and an economist, is the David Florence Professor of Government at Harvard University. A world-renowned expert on Latin America and Africa, he has worked in Botswana, Mauritius, Sierra Leone, and South Africa. He is also the co-author of The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty. - (Random House, Inc.)
Booklist Reviews
Advancing a theory about why poor countries are poor, Acemoglu and Robinson, academics at MIT and Harvard, respectively, expound economic history—an activity that repeatedly if surprisingly produces popular books, such as those by Jared Diamond, Niall Ferguson, Steve Levitt, and Charles Mann. Perhaps the reason for high interest in the dismal science lies in a desire for concise, credible explanations about the formidable complexities of economics. If so, Acemoglu and Robinson deliver. They hold that countries become impoverished by despotic government. Opponents of globalization, corporations, and finance find no support in their argument, which recounts economic events from the Roman Empire to Zimbabwe. For each polity under scrutiny, the authors categorize its political institutions as "extractive" or "inclusive." Using Britain's Glorious Revolution of 1688 as an analytical touchstone, Acemoglu and Robinson maintain throughout that laws and customs that protect property pave the road to prosperity, while the caprices of autocracy put property at risk and ultimately stifle growth. With historical examples to keep the exposition moving, Acemoglu and Robinson should recruit general-interest readers curious about economic development. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.
Choice Reviews
An obvious focus for studying economic growth would be on success, markets, and recent events. In this nontechnical and engaging account, economist Acemoglu (MIT) and political scientist Robinson (Harvard) instead focus on failure, politics, and the extended past. Their basic assessment is that whether an economy grows or stagnates depends on whether it adopts what they identify as inclusive or extractive institutions and this in turn depends on political processes and the distribution of power. The bulk of their book consists of historical narratives going back to the Neolithic Revolution to examine why, over most of human history and over most of the globe, societies have ended up primarily with extractive rather than inclusive institutions. They argue that elites who have succeeded in obtaining political power are reluctant to give up the substantial benefits this yields. While their account is lucid, it is also repetitious and cluttered with excessive historical detail. Specialists are likely to cavil with the simplicity of their categories and explanations. However, their narrative is compelling and likely to be influential. General readers and specialists alike should profit from this book's wide-ranging perspectives. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty; Professionals/Practitioners. D. Mitch University of Maryland Baltimore County Copyright 2013 American Library Association.
Kirkus Reviews
Following up on their earlier collaboration (Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, 2005), two scholars examine why some nations thrive and others don't. Neither geography, nor culture, nor mistaken policies explain the vast differences in prosperity among nations. The reasons for world inequality, write Acemoglu (Economics/MIT) and Robinson (Government/Harvard Univ.), are rooted in politics, in whether nations have developed inclusive political institutions and a sufficiently centralized state to lay the groundwork for economic institutions critical for growth. In turn, these economic institutions give citizens liberty to pursue work that suits their talents, a fairly enforced set of rules and incentives to pursue education and technological innovation. When these conditions are not met, write the authors, when the political and economic institutions are "extractive," failure surely follows. It matters not if the Tsars or the Bolsheviks governed Russia, if the Qing dynasty or Mao ruled China, if Ferdinand and Isabella or General Franco reigned in Spain--all absolutism is the same, erecting historically predictable barriers to prosperity. The critical distinction between, say, North and South Korea, lies in the vastly different institutional legacies on either side, one open and responsive to the needs and aspirations of society, the other closed with power narrowly distributed for the benefit of a few. In their wide-ranging discussion, Acemoglu and Robinson address big-picture concepts like "critical junctures" in history--the Black Death, the discovery of the Americas, the Glorious Revolution--which disrupt the existing political and economic balance and can abruptly change the trajectory of nations for better or worse. They also offer a series of small but telling stories in support of their thesis: how the wealth of Bill Gates differs from the riches of Carlos Slim, why Queen Elizabeth I rejected a patent for a knitting machine, how the inmates took over the asylum in colonies like Jamestown and New South Wales and why the Ottoman Empire suppressed the printing press. For economics and political-science students, surely, but also for the general reader who will appreciate how gracefully the authors wear their erudition. Copyright Kirkus 2012 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
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