| Preface |
|
1 | (6) |
|
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 |
|
|
7 | (38) |
|
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 |
|
|
45 | (25) |
|
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 |
|
|
70 | (26) |
|
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 |
|
|
96 | (28) |
|
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 |
|
|
124 | (28) |
|
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 |
|
|
|
|
|
152 | (30) |
|
How institutions evolve over time, often slowly drifting apart |
|
|
|
|
|
182 | (31) |
|
How a political revolution in 1688 changed institutions in England and led to the Industrial Revolution |
|
|
|
8 Not on Our Turf: Barriers to Development |
|
|
213 | (32) |
|
Why the politically powerful in many nations opposed the Industrial Revolution |
|
|
|
|
|
245 | (29) |
|
How European colonialism impoverished large parts of the world |
|
|
|
10 The Diffusion of Prosperity |
|
|
274 | (28) |
|
How some parts of the world took different paths to prosperity from that of Britain |
|
|
|
|
|
302 | (33) |
|
How institutions that encourage prosperity create positive feedback loops that prevent the efforts by elites to undermine them |
|
|
|
|
|
335 | (33) |
|
How institutions that create poverty generate negative feedback loops and endure |
|
|
|
13 Why Nations Fail Today |
|
|
368 | (36) |
|
Institutions, institutions, institutions |
|
|
|
|
|
404 | (24) |
|
How a few countries changed their economic trajectory by changing their institutions |
|
|
|
15 Understanding Prosperity and Poverty |
|
|
428 | (35) |
|
How the world could have been different and how understanding this can explain why most attempts to combat poverty have failed |
|
|
| Acknowledgments |
|
463 | (2) |
| Bibliographical Essay and Sources |
|
465 | (18) |
| References |
|
483 | (28) |
| Index |
|
511 | |