Acemoglu and Robinson argue that sustained growth is almost always attained in a particular way: inclusive political institutions develop first, followed by inclusive economic institutions, followed by growth. They recognize the boldness of their claim…
Democracy’s Dilemma
There is more to democratic government than simply the right to vote. The temptation to exercise power in ways that advance self-interests at the expense of national interests must be controlled…
Property and Property Rights: A History
What do property and property rights mean today? What are their philosophical and economic foundations?
Socialism in the Nineteenth Century
Socialist ideas began to appear in the early 1800s, and socialist and communist political parties were active before 1870. The most successful Marxist party, Germany’s SPD, was the largest party in the Reichstag by 1914…
The Russian Odyssey: 1900-1924
In the first decades of the twentieth century, Russia went from autocracy, to revolution and civil war, to communist rule. Economically, it went from an impoverished market economy, to War Communism and the New Economic Policy, to the beginnings of the command economy…
The Holodomor and Mao’s Famine
The Communist governments of Stalin and Mao were responsible for two of the worst famines in history…
The Modern Decline in Extreme Poverty
In 1970, more than two hundred years after the Industrial Revolution began, six in ten people still lived in extreme poverty. That number fell to just one in ten over the following forty-five years…
Chinese Politics in the Time of Deng Xiaoping
The era in which Deng Xiaoping restructured the Chinese economy was also an era of social unrest, both within China and in the Eastern Bloc…
The Chinese Economy after Mao
After the death of Mao, China introduced new economic policies that caused very rapid growth of per capita GDP…
Merchants and Mechanics 