Quotes from Daron AcemoÄŸlu

stimulating sustained economic growth required that individuals use their talent and ideas, and this could never be done with a Soviet-style economic system.

albeit of a particularly vicious and inefficient type. Countries become failed states not because of their geography or their culture, but because of the legacy of extractive institutions

In fact, it is known that a major technological innovation, the introduction of the steel axe among the group of Australian Aboriginal peoples known as Yir Yoront, led not to more intense production but to more sleeping, because it allowed subsistence requirements to be met more easily, with little incentive to work for more.

THE SOVIET UNION was able to generate rapid growth even under extractive institutions because the Bolsheviks built a powerful centralized state and used it to allocate resources toward industry.

The first place in the world to grant female suffrage was Wyoming in 1869, earning it the nickname the Equality State.

growth under extractive institutions is limited not only because of lack of technological progress but also because it will encourage infighting from rival groups wishing to take control of the state and the extraction it generates.

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.

Improved health and life expectancy were not the cause of England's economic success but one of the fruits of its previous political and economic changes.

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.

In fact, a thousand years of history and contemporary evidence make one thing abundantly clear: there is nothing automatic about new technologies bringing widespread prosperity. Whether they do or not is an economic, social, and political choice.

it is the political institutions of a nation that determine the ability of citizens to control politicians and influence how they behave. This in turn determines whether politicians are agents of the citizens, albeit imperfect, or are able to abuse the power entrusted to them, or that they have usurped, to amass their own fortunes and to pursue their own agendas, ones detrimental to those of the citizens.

The great inequality of the modern world that emerged in the nineteenth century was caused by the uneven dissemination of industrial technologies and manufacturing production. It was not caused by divergence in agricultural performance.

history is not destiny.

Absolutism reigned not just in much of Europe but also in Asia, and similarly prevented industrialization during the critical juncture created by the Industrial Revolution. The Ming and Qing dynasties of China and the absolutism of the Ottoman Empire illustrate this pattern.

Many studies estimate that only about 10 or at most 20 percent of aid ever reaches its target. There are dozens of ongoing fraud investigations into charges of UN and local officials siphoning off aid money. But most of the waste resulting from foreign aid is not fraud, just incompetence or even worse: simply business as usual for aid organizations.

the rulers were, in serious senses, whether willingly or unwillingly, the prisoners of their own rhetoric; they played games of power according to rules which suited them, but they could not break those rules or the whole game would be thrown away. Throwing

the iron law of oligarchy.

even if industry itself was very inefficiently organized relative to what could have been achieved. In fact, between 1928 and 1960 national income grew at 6 percent a year, probably the most rapid spurt of economic growth in history up until then.

los países pobres lo son porque quienes tienen el poder toman decisiones que crean pobreza. No lo hacen bien, no porque se equivoquen o por su ignorancia, sino a propósito.

A confluence of factors, in particular a critical juncture coupled with a broad coalition of those pushing for reform or other propitious existing institutions, is often necessary for a nation to make strides toward more inclusive institutions. In addition some luck is key, because history always unfolds in a contingent way.

The historical account we have presented so far indicates that any approach based on historical determinism—based on geography, culture, or even other historical factors—is inadequate. Small differences and contingency are not just part of our theory; they are part of the shape of history.

Inclusive economic institutions also pave the way for two other engines of prosperity: technology and education. Sustained economic growth is almost always accompanied by technological improvements that enable people (labor), land, and existing capital (buildings, existing machines, and so on) to become more productive.

En muchos casos, por ejemplo, como veremos en Argentina, Colombia y Egipto, este fracaso adopta la forma de falta de actividad económica suficiente, porque los políticos están encantados de extraer recursos o de aplastar cualquier tipo de actividad económica independiente que los amenace a ellos y a las élites económicas.

Growth thus moves forward only if not blocked by the economic losers who anticipate that their economic privileges will be lost and by the political losers who fear that their political power will be eroded.