why nations fail by daron acemoglu and james a robinson

Thinking of the state as a critical mechanism for economic growth is obviously counter-intuitive in a libertarian mind.Īcemoglu and Robinson summarize their two decades of technical work, both theoretical and empirical, in this book with the ambitious and laudable mission of making a simple political-economic graphic model that can be understood by non-technical readers. Yet, drawing from Hobbes’s analysis, the authors tenaciously assert the existential need for an all-encompassing Leviathan, a powerful state, as a pre-requisite for achieving liberty. The very first sentence is: This book is about liberty, and how and why human societies have achieved or failed to achieve it.Īlthough an in-depth analysis of Hayek’s work does appear in Chapter 15, the last chapter of the work, the authors acknowledge Hayek’s concern about the emergence of a despotic state at the very beginning of the book, showing a sincere focus on libertarian-minded thinking. Libertarians and minarchists, after all, have found allies in the world of institutional development economics before. Their answer was simple – inclusive institutions create prosperity. Robinson initially published a book called Why Nations Fail, summarizing their career-long work, taking on what presumably is the most fundamental question of economics: Why are some nations rich and others are poor. Prominent economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Rarely, however, do these readings use “ liberty ” as a primary metric.

In the field of development economics, a growing body of literature is being contributed towards assessing a states’ capacity and its implication in long run growth economic growth.

Why nations fail by daron acemoglu and james a robinson