Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemogl

Description: Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson Based on 15 years of original research, Acemoglu and Robinson marshal 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. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • From two winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, "who have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a countrys prosperity" "A wildly ambitious work that hopscotches through history and around the world to answer the very big question of why some countries get rich and others dont."—The New York Times FINALIST: Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Economist, BusinessWeek, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, The Plain Dealer Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, or geography that determines prosperity or poverty? As Why Nations Fail shows, none of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Drawing on fifteen years of original research, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is our man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or the lack of it). Korea, to take just one example, is a remarkably homogenous 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 differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created those two different institutional trajectories. Acemoglu and Robinson marshal extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, among them: • Will Chinas economy continue to grow at such a high speed and ultimately overwhelm the West? • Are Americas best days behind it? Are we creating a vicious cycle that enriches and empowers a small minority? "This book will change the way people think about the wealth and poverty of nations . . . as ambitious as Jared Diamonds Guns, Germs, and Steel."—BusinessWeek Author Biography 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. Table of Contents C o n t e n t s PrefaceWhy Egyptians fi lled Tahrir Square to bring down Hosni Mubarakand what it means for our understanding of the causes ofprosperity and poverty 1.So Close and Yet So DifferentNogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, have the same people,culture, and geography. Why is one rich and one poor? 2.Theories That Dont WorkPoor countries are poor not because of their geographies or cultures,or because their leaders do not know which policies will enrichtheir citizens 3.The Making of Prosperity and PovertyHow prosperity and poverty are determined by the incentivescreated by institutions, and how politics determines whatinstitutions a nation has 4.Small Differences and Critical Junctures:The Weight of HistoryHow institutions change through political confl ict and howthe past shapes the present 5."Ive Seen the Future, and It Works":Growth Under Extractive InstitutionsWhat Stalin, King Shyaam, the Neolithic Revolution, and theMaya city-states all had in common and how this explains whyChinas current economic growth cannot last 6.Drifting ApartHow institutions evolve over time, often slowly drifting apart 7.The Turning PointHow a political revolution in 1688 changed institutions inEngland and led to the Industrial Revolution 8.Not on Our Turf: Barriers to DevelopmentWhy the politically powerful in many nations opposed theIndustrial Revolution 9.Reversing DevelopmentHow European colonialism impoverished large parts of the world 10.The Diffusion of ProsperityHow some parts of the world took different paths to prosperityfrom that of Britain 11.The Virtuous CircleHow institutions that encourage prosperity create positive feedbackloops that prevent the efforts by elites to undermine them12.The Vicious CircleHow institutions that create poverty generate negativefeedback loops and endure 13.Why Nations Fail TodayInstitutions, institutions, institutions 14.Breaking the MoldHow a few countries changed their economic trajectory bychanging their institutions 15.Understanding Prosperity and PovertyHow the world could have been different and how understandingthis can explain why most attempts to combat poverty have failed AcknowledgmentsBibliographical Essay and SourcesReferencesIndex Review "Should be required reading for politicians and anyone concerned with economic development."—Jared Diamond, New York Review of Books". . . bracing, garrulous, wildly ambitious and ultimately hopeful. It may, in fact, be a bit of a masterpiece."—The Washington Post"This is an intellectually rich book that develops an important thesis with verve. It should be widely read."—Financial Times"Why Nations Fail is a splendid piece of scholarship and a showcase of economic rigor."—The Wall Street Journal"The main strength of this book is beyond the power of summary: it is packed, from beginning to end, with historical vignettes that are both erudite and fascinating."—The Observer (UK)"A brilliant book."—Bloomberg"Why Nations Fail is a wildly ambitious work that hopscotches through history and around the world to answer the very big question of why some countries get rich and others dont."—The New York Times"A wonderfully readable mix of history, political science, and economics, this book will change the way we think about economic development."—Steven Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics"Without the inclusive institutions that first evolved in the West, sustainable growth is impossible, because only a truly free society can foster genuine innovation and the creative destruction that is its corollary."—Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money"Two centuries from now our great-great-great grandchildren will be, similarly, reading Why Nations Fail."—George Akerlof, Nobel laureate in economics, 2001"Its the politics, stupid! That is Acemoglu and Robinsons simple yet compelling explanation for why so many countries fail to develop. But they also document how sensible economic ideas and policies often achieve little in the absence of fundamental political change."—Dani Rodrik, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University"A brilliant and uplifting book—yet also a deeply disturbing wake-up call."—Simon Johnson, co-author of 13 Bankers and professor at MIT Sloan "This highly accessible book provides welcome insight to specialists and general readers alike."—Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and the Last Man and The Origins of Political Order"This intimate connection between political and economic institutions is the heart of [the authors] major contribution, and has resulted in a study of great vitality on one of the crucial questions in economics and political economy."—Gary S. Becker, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1992"This not only a fascinating and interesting book: it is a really important one . . . to understanding the successes and failures of societies and nations."—Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001 Review Quote "Should be required reading for politicians and anyone concerned with economic development." --Jared Diamond, New York Review of Books "...bracing, garrulous, wildly ambitious and ultimately hopeful. It may, in fact, be a bit of a masterpiece." -- Washington Post "For economics and political-science students, surely, but also for the general reader who will appreciate how gracefully the authors wear their erudition." -- Kirkus Reviews Excerpt from Book Preface This book is about the huge differences in incomes and standards of living that separate the rich countries of the world, such as the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, from the poor, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and South Asia. As we write this preface, North Africa and the Middle East have been shaken by the "Arab Spring" started by the so-called Jasmine Revolution, which was initially ignited by public outrage over the selfimmolation of a street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, on December 17, 2010. By January 14, 2011, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled Tunisia since 1987, had stepped down, but far from abating, the revolutionary fervor against the rule of privileged elites in Tunisia was getting stronger and had already spread to the rest of the Middle East. Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt with a tight grip for almost thirty years, was ousted on February 11, 2011. The fates of the regimes in Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Yemen are unknown as we complete this preface. The roots of discontent in these countries lie in their poverty. The average Egyptian has an income level of around 12 percent of the average citizen of the United States and can expect to live ten fewer years; 20 percent of the population is in dire poverty. Though these differences are significant, they are actually quite small compared with those between the United States and the poorest countries in the world, such as North Korea, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe, where well over half the population lives in poverty. Why is Egypt so much poorer than the United States? What are the constraints that keep Egyptians from becoming more prosperous? Is the poverty of Egypt immutable, or can it be eradicated? A natural way to start thinking about this is to look at what the Egyptians themselves are saying about the problems they face and why they rose up against the Mubarak regime. Noha Hamed, twenty-four, a worker at an advertising agency in Cairo, made her views clear as she demonstrated in Tahrir Square: "We are suffering from corruption, oppression and bad education. We are living amid a corrupt system which has to change." Another in the square, Mosaab El Shami, twenty, a pharmacy student, concurred: "I hope that by the end of this year we will have an elected government and that universal freedoms are applied and that we put an end to the corruption that has taken over this country." The protestors in Tahrir Square spoke with one voice about the corruption of the government, its inability to deliver public services, and the lack of equality of opportunity in their country. They particularly complained about repression and the absence of political rights. As Mohamed ElBaradei, former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, wrote on Twitter on January 13, 2011, "Tunisia: repression + absence of social justice + denial of channels for peaceful change = a ticking bomb." Egyptians and Tunisians both saw their economic problems as being fundamentally caused by their lack of political rights. When the protestors started to formulate their demands more systematically, the fi rst twelve immediate demands posted by Wael Khalil, the software engineer and blogger who emerged as one of the leaders of the Egyptian protest movement, were all focused on political change. Issues such as raising the minimum wage appeared only among the transitional demands that were to be implemented later. To Egyptians, the things that have held them back include an ineffective and corrupt state and a society where they cannot use their talent, ambition, ingenuity, and what education they can get. But they also recognize that the roots of these problems are political. All the economic impediments they face stem from the way political power in Egypt is exercised and monopolized by a narrow elite. This, they understand, is the fi rst thing that has to change. Yet, in believing this, the protestors of Tahrir Square have sharply diverged from the conventional wisdom on this topic. When they reason about why a country such as Egypt is poor, most academics and commentators emphasize completely different factors. Some stress that Egypts poverty is determined primarily by its geography, by the fact that the country is mostly a desert and lacks adequate rainfall, and that its soils and climate do not allow productive agriculture. Others instead point to cultural attributes of Egyptians that are supposedly inimical to economic development and prosperity. Egyptians, they argue, lack the same sort of work ethic and cultural traits that have allowed others to prosper, and instead have accepted Islamic beliefs that are inconsistent with economic success. A third approach, the one dominant among economists and policy pundits, is based on the notion that the rulers of Egypt simply dont know what is needed to make their country prosperous, and have followed incorrect policies and strategies in the past. If these rulers would only get the right advice from the right advisers, the thinking goes, prosperity would follow. To these academics and pundits, the fact that Egypt has been ruled by narrow elites feathering their nests at the expense of society seems irrelevant to understanding the countrys economic problems. In this book well argue that the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, not most academics and commentators, have the right idea. In fact, Egypt is poor precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that have organized society for their own benefi t at the expense of the vast mass of people. Political power has been narrowly concentrated, and has been used to create great wealth for those who possess it, such as the $70 billion fortune apparently accumulated by ex-president Mubarak. The losers have been the Egyptian people, as they only too well understand. Well show that this interpretation of Egyptian poverty, the peoples interpretation, turns out to provide a general explanation for why poor countries are poor. Whether it is North Korea, Sierra Leone, or Zimbabwe, well show that poor countries are poor for the same reason that Egypt is poor. Countries such as Great Britain and the United States became rich because their citizens overthrew the elites who controlled power and created a society where political rights were much more broadly distributed, where the government was accountable and responsive to citizens, and where the great mass of people could take advantage of economic opportunities. Well show that to understand why there is such inequality in the world today we have to delve into the past and study the historical dynamics of societies. Well see that the reason that Britain is richer than Egypt is because in 1688, Britain (or England, to be exact) had a revolution that transformed the politics and thus the economics of the nation. People fought for and won more political rights, and they used them to expand their economic opportunities. The result was a fundamentally different political and economic trajectory, culminating in the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution and the technologies it unleashed didnt spread to Egypt, as that country was under the control of the Ottoman Empire, which treated Egypt in rather the same way as the Mubarak family later did. Ottoman rule in Egypt was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798, but the country then fell under the control of British colonialism, which had as little interest as the Ottomans in promoting Egypts prosperity. Though the Egyptians shook off the Ottoman and British empires and, in 1952, overthrew their monarchy, these were not revolutions like that of 1688 in England, and rather than fundamentally transforming politics in Egypt, they brought to power another elite as disinterested in achieving prosperity for ordinary Egyptians as the Ottoman and British had been. In consequence, the basic structure of society did not change, and Egypt stayed poor. In this book well study how these patterns reproduce themselves over time and why sometimes they are altered, as they were in England in 1688 and in France with the revolution of 1789. This will help us to understand if the situation in Egypt has changed today and whether the revolution that overthrew Mubarak will lead to a new set of institutions capable of bringing prosperity to ordinary Egyptians. Egypt has had revolutions in the past that did not change things, because those who mounted the revolutions simply took over the reins from those theyd deposed and re-created a similar system. It is indeed difficult for ordinary citizens to acquire real political power and change the way their society works. But it is possible, and well see how this happened in England, France, and the United States, and also in Japan, Botswana, and Brazil. Fundamentally it is a political transformation of this sort that is required for a poor society to become rich. There is evidence that this may be happening in Egypt. Reda Metwaly, another protestor in Tahrir Square, argued, "Now you see Muslims and Christians together, now you see old and young together, all wanting the same thing." Well see that such a broad movement in society was a key part of what happened in these other political transformations. If we understand when and why such transitions occur, we will be in a better position to evaluate when we expect such movements to fail as they have often done in the past and when we may hope that they will succeed and improve the lives of millions. Details ISBN0307719227 Author James A. Robinson Short Title WHY NATIONS FAIL Language English ISBN-10 0307719227 ISBN-13 9780307719225 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 330 Year 2013 Series Crown Books Subtitle The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2013-09-17 NZ Release Date 2013-09-17 US Release Date 2013-09-17 UK Release Date 1900-01-01 Pages 544 Publication Date 2013-09-17 Replaces 9780804138277 Illustrations PHOTO INSERTS AND MAPS Audience General Publisher Crown Currency Imprint Crown Currency We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:76600071;

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