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 desti...
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.
Daron Acemoglu is the Killian Professor of Economics at MIT. He received the John Bates Clark Medal.
http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/acemoglu/
James Robinson is a political scientist and economist and the Florence Professor of Government at Harvard University, and a world-renowned expert on Latin America and Africa.
Daron Acemoglu is the Killian Professor of Economics at MIT. He received the John Bates Clark Medal.
http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/acemoglu/
James Robinson is a political scientist and economist and the Florence Professor of Government at Harvard University, and a world-renowned expert on Latin America and Africa.
http://scholar.harvard.edu/jrobinson
They are the authors of Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, which won numerous prizes (http://book.douban.com/subject/1841848/)
目录
· · · · · ·
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
· · · · · ·
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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 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
Acknowledgments
Bibliographical Essay and Sources
References
Index
· · · · · · (收起)
As we will show, poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty. They get it wrong not by mistake or ignorance but on purpose. To understand this, you have to go beyond economics and expert advice on the best thing to do and, instead, study how decisions actually get made, who gets to make them, and why those people decide to do what they do. This is the study of politics and political processes. ... [A]chieving prosperity depends on solving some basic political problems. It is precisely because economics has assumed that political problems are solved that it has not been able to come up with a convincing explanation for world inequality. Explaining world inequality still needs economics to understand how different types of policies and social ar... (查看原文)
Acemoglu and Robinson on Why Nations Fail Francis Fukuyama Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have just published Why Nations Fail, a big book on development that will attract a lot of attention. The latest fad in development studies has been to conduct con...
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据说经济学家张五常提出的产权论在中国影响深远,其可贵之處是简单而清晰。张氏认为穷国富国,取決于产权介定。你是否有权转让自己的财产(a right to transfer)?是否有权用它(a right to use)?是否能用資产賺取收入(a right to earn income)。三大权的定立需要市场经济配...
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8 有用 freddie 2023-03-02 18:31:07 上海
🫤。Why nations fail?cuz they haven't been allowed to succeed.
44 有用 上上签 2025-01-23 20:29:09 上海
这本书给国人最大的启发就是,有些制度根本就不认为经济是一定要搞好的
35 有用 功夫熊猫小碗熊 2013-06-08 14:18:15
学术书腔调畅销政策书底子,宽大视野必须忽略细节,案例繁杂,大气但粗糙。制度是一系列自变量在复杂历史机制和偶然性中所形成的均衡,其本身就为一因变量、或实为国家肌体本身,当作近乎唯一自变量解释当代盛衰是简便但肤浅/循环自证。除黑死病外,光荣革命之类似应当成制度内生突变而非偶然性和突发点。包容/攫取定义不清:包容的重点为司法保护私产、市场经济和政治权力制衡,政治参与是次要;攫取要点则在以政治权力阻止他人... 学术书腔调畅销政策书底子,宽大视野必须忽略细节,案例繁杂,大气但粗糙。制度是一系列自变量在复杂历史机制和偶然性中所形成的均衡,其本身就为一因变量、或实为国家肌体本身,当作近乎唯一自变量解释当代盛衰是简便但肤浅/循环自证。除黑死病外,光荣革命之类似应当成制度内生突变而非偶然性和突发点。包容/攫取定义不清:包容的重点为司法保护私产、市场经济和政治权力制衡,政治参与是次要;攫取要点则在以政治权力阻止他人进入自己在抽税/租的领域,直接强征经济利益为次要。故中国、智利、印度等混合制度即是包容与攫取的中间阶段,组合如何、如何发展则当具体分析,不应死抱分类。未能圆满解决国家权力集中化同维持包容性制度的矛盾和聚合—欧美毕竟经历特殊历史进程方形成合适配比—却因分类僵化而提出政治改革一路的政策建议,大胆而难为。 (展开)
2 有用 导弹 2013-12-09 14:56:18
这学期seminar教授布置的小组project要做这本书的presentation,还坑爹的占课程分数100%-_-当作历史书补充知识面挺不错,作为经济学学术研究书籍总觉得不够严谨.....(难道是project做太多总觉得要找数据run个regression才行?
5 有用 庄常飞 2012-11-16 10:11:44
挣扎了很久,还是给4星吧。本书的好处在于知识范围够广,总有一款是你不知道的,另外各种hammer一个简化了的核心理念,让你可以记忆深刻。缺点则是一切问题讲得都不够深入、不够细致,另外新意不多。如果不是这样的大家所著,应该就是一部普通的作品吧。