| Formatted Contents Note: |
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 -- 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 -- 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 -- 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 -- 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 -- 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 -- 6. Drifting apart -- How institutions evolve over time, often slowly drifting apart -- 7. The turning point -- How a political revolution in 1688 changed institutions in England and led to the Industrial Revolution -- 8. Not on our turf: barriers to development -- Why the politically powerful in many nations opposed the Industrial Revolution -- 9. Reversing development -- How European colonialism impoverished large parts of the world -- 10. The diffusion of prosperity -- How some parts of the world took different paths to prosperity from that of Britain -- 11. The virtuous circle -- How institutions that encourage prosperity create positive feedback loops that prevent the efforts by elites to undermine them -- 12. The vicious circle -- How institutions that create poverty generate negative feedback loops and endure -- 13. Why nations fail today -- Institutions, institutions, institutions -- 14. Breaking the mold -- How a few countries changed their economic trajectory by changing their institutions -- 15. Understanding prosperity and poverty -- How the world could have been different and how understanding this can explain why most attempts to combat poverty have failed. |
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