cosa rimane della tesi di Acemoglu e Robinson

The most debated question in the last decades have been focused on the major causes of the differences in income per capita among countries. It is known that historical origins and regulations have played a crucial role in the development of countries, but in this paper, I am going to try and analyse one of the most important studies on development investigation made by Daren Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. First of all, we will see their argument and thesis based on how colonial origins have had an impact on present institutions. In “Why Nations Fail” they reject the idea that traditional factors such as geography, climate and culture can be the dominant ones to explain the success and development of some countries in comparison with others. In fact, they give greater importance to institutions, the only factor sufficient and responsible for economic development. The State and legislation thus create incentives and, depending on their greater or lesser power, are classified in two categories, “inclusive” and “extractive”. In the extractive one only a group of few benefits, the so-called “dominant elite”, braking innovation and creating a vicious circle that will never result in the success of the country. The inclusive institution, on the contrary, is aimed at economic growth and the involvement of all citizens. We will see then, through the complementary paper “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development”, how Acemoglu and Robison use a new instrumental variable to explain what led the difference between the institutions in the countries colonized by Europeans. However, their thesis has been questioned and criticised a lot by other economists, so in the next sections I will examine David Y. Albouy’s work that underlines the bias of settler mortality rates used by the two authors. Secondly, I will proceed to analyse the criticism made by Jeffrey D. Sachs on the importance of other variables such as geography, supported by an interesting study made by Marcela Alsan “The Effect Of Tsetse Fly on African Development”. Lastly, Arvind Subramanian in his review article makes reference to two exception that can’t be explained by AJR deterministic argument, China and India. The following thesis suggests that, on the basis of the listed criticisms, Acemoglu's thesis is to be considered partially valid because it has several shortcomings. So, at the end, we can question ourselves what is really left of AJR’s argument?