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

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 country’s 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 don’t.”—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 China’s economy continue to grow at such a high speed and ultimately overwhelm the West?   • Are America’s 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 Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel.”—BusinessWeek

Table of Contents:
Preface 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   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   Acknowledgments Bibliographical Essay and Sources References Index

About the Author :
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.

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 don’t.”—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 “It’s the politics, stupid! That is Acemoglu and Robinson’s 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