I've committed to talk about the work of Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson on very long run economic growth:
First paper:
As Mary Shirley has written, the focus of development has changed from "get your prices right" to "get your institutions right"--and Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson have been at the forefront of this move with at least three very interesting, powerful, popular, and impressive papers. "Colonial Origins," "Reversal of Fortune, and "Atlantic Trade."
Let me consider "Colonial Origins of Underdevelopment" (American Economic Review) first.
Second paper:
Third paper:
Posted by DeLong at September 24, 2003 03:46 PM | TrackBackMcArthur Sachs: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W8114
Easterlin, Richard, “Why Isn’t the Whole World Developed?” Journal of Economic History, 41, 1 (1981): 1-19.
Findlay, Ronald, “The Roots of Divergence: Western Economic History in Comparative Perspective,” American Economic Review 82, 2 (1992): 158-61.
Moses Abramovitz, “Catching Up, Forging Ahead, and Falling Behind,” Journal of Economic History 46, 2 (1986): 385-406.
Robert C. Allen, “The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War,” Explorations in Economic History (October 2001): 411-447.
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998.
Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, Ch. 1. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962.
Mancur Olson, “Big Bills Left on the Sidewalk: Why Some Nations Are Rich, and Others Poor,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 10, 2 (1996): 3-24.
Lant Pritchett, “Divergence, Big Time,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 11, 3 (1997): 3-17.
Jeffrey G. Williamson, “Globalization, Convergence, and History,” Journal of Economic History 56, 2 (1996):277-306.
Coelho, Philip R.P., and Robert A. McGuire, “African and European Bound Labor in the British New World: The Biological Consequences of Economic Choices,” Journal of Economic History 57, 1 (1997): 83-115.
Sokoloff, Kenneth L., and Stanley L. Engerman, “Institutions, Factor Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, 3 (Summer 2000): 217- 232.
Suchit Arora, “Health, Human Productivity, and Long-Term Economic Growth,” Journal of Economic History 61, 3 (2001): 699-749.
Ronald Findlay, “The Triangular Trade and the Atlantic Economy of the Eighteenth Century: A Simple General Equilibrium Model,” Princeton University, Essays in International Finance No. 177 (1990).
David Eltis and Stanley L. Engerman, “The Importance of Slavery and the Slave Trade to Industrializing Britain,” Journal of Economic History 60, 1 (March 2001): 123-144.
I find DeSoto's The Mystery of Capital very satisfying as to the answer: lack of rule of law supporting private property.
What all who hope to help the poor (help themselves) should be pushing, I think.
Posted by: Tom Grey on September 18, 2003 02:52 AMFascinating list. I wish I had time and access to read some of it.
Since I'm not at a participating institution I can't look at the entire AJR papers, but from the abstracts it seems as if the overall thesis is not far from the old leftist "Legacy of Colonalism" view.
What goes around comes around?
I find the titles and abstracts of these articles quite interesting indeed. Damn I knew I should have majored in econ. Any chance to find a more inclusive synopsis or online copies of any of these papers without having to buy them?
Posted by: non economist on September 18, 2003 06:34 PMJonathan brings up a good point: it's a major pain that there's all these fantastic papers I can't read, because I can't shell out for them. Is the cost of publication really that high?
Posted by: Jason McCullough on September 24, 2003 06:21 PM