Quotes from Daron AcemoÄŸlu

It is impossible to understand many of the poorest regions of the world at the end of the twentieth century without understanding the new absolutism of the twentieth century: communism.

The so-called ancien régime prided itself on its continuity and stability. Entry by entrepreneurs and talented individuals into new occupations would create instability and was not tolerated. If

We'll 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.

In all cases communism brought vicious dictatorships and widespread human rights abuses.

The Black Death is a vivid example of a critical juncture, a major event or confluence of factors disrupting the existing economic or political balance in society.

las economías basadas en la represión del trabajo y los sistemas como la esclavitud y la servidumbre carecen claramente de innovación. Esto es así desde el mundo antiguo hasta la era moderna

The Communist economic institutions were in turn supported by extractive political institutions, concentrating all power in the hands of Communist parties and introducing no constraints on the exercise of this power. Though these were different extractive institutions in form, they had similar effects on the livelihoods of the people as the extractive institutions in Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone.

Underachievement was always the best way to meet targets and get the bonus. The fact that bonuses were paid monthly also kept everyone focused on the present, while innovation is about making sacrifices today in order to have more tomorrow. Even

Dutch governor of Batavia, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, came up with an alternative plan. Coen founded Batavia, on the island of Java, as the Dutch East India Company's new capital in 1618. In 1621 he sailed to Banda with a fleet and proceeded to massacre almost the entire population of the islands, probably about fifteen thousand people.

La educación y las habilidades de los trabajadores son lo que genera el conocimiento científico sobre el que se construye nuestro progreso y lo que permite la adaptación y adopción de estas tecnologías en varias líneas de negocio.

Australia was not Britain, and its law would not be just British.

Attempting to engineer prosperity without confronting the root cause of the problems—extractive institutions and the politics that keeps them in place—is unlikely to bear fruit.

IF THE POLITICAL and economic institutions of Latin America over the past five hundred years were shaped by Spanish colonialism, those of the Middle East were shaped by Ottoman colonialism.

Throughout the last five decades, hundreds of billions of dollars have been paid to governments around the world as "development" aid. Much of it has been wasted in overhead and corruption, just as in Afghanistan.

The geography hypothesis claims that the great divide between rich and poor countries is created by geographical differences. Many poor countries, such as those of Africa, Central America, and South Asia are between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn. Rich nations in cntrast tend to be in temperate latitudes. This geographic concentration of poverty and prosperity gives superficial appeal to the geography hypothesis.

Putting an end to foreign aid is impractical and would likely lead to additional human suffering. It is impractical because citizens of many Western nations feel guilt and unease about the economic and humanitarian disasters around the world, and foreign aid makes them believe that something is being done to combat the problems. Even if this something is not very effective, their desire for doing it will continue, and so will foreign aid.

But if out of every dollar given to aid, ten cents makes it to the poorest people in the world, that is ten cents more than they had before to alleviate the most abject poverty, and it might still be better than nothing.

foreign aid is not a very effective means of dealing with the failure of nations around the world today. Far from it. Countries need inclusive economic and political institutions to break out of the cycle of poverty

since the development of inclusive economic and political institutions is key, using the existing flows of foreign aid at least in part to facilitate such development would be useful.

The English textile industry not only was the driving force behind the Industrial Revolution but also revolutionized the world economy.

Los países fracasan hoy en día porque sus instituciones económicas extractivas no crean los incentivos necesarios para que la gente ahorre, invierta e innove.

The solution to the economic and political failure of nations today is to transform their extractive institutions toward inclusive ones. The vicious circle means that this is not easy. But it is not impossible, and the iron law of oligarchy is not inevitable.

En una versión algo posmoderna de la teoría de la modernización, el columnista de The New York Times Thomas Friedman llegó a sugerir que, cuando un país tiene suficientes McDonald's, aparecen sin duda la democracia y las instituciones.

NATIONS FAIL TODAY because their extractive economic institutions do not create the incentives needed for people to save, invest, and innovate. Extractive political institutions support these economic institutions by cementing the power of those who benefit from the extraction. Extractive economic and political institutions, though their details vary under different circumstances, are always at the root of this failure.