Why China Isn't Doing So Well?

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There are as many theories on this as the number of authors who wrote on it. The geography hypothesis that some places are rich because they have a favorable climate, or natural resourceare good natural resources, and so on and i think just the evidence doesn't support that. But if you sor of ask people why china is doing so well, its about chinese culture. Why he mexicans aren't doing so well? Or why the sapsar in africa as poor as all about national cultures. And we try to explain why such explanations are very limited. We're sorof naturally drawn to that as academics, because our business is to think of good policiesand and judge which

Daron Acemoglu of MIT and author (with James Robinson) of Why Nations Fail talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas in his book: why some nations fail and others succeed, why some nations grow over time and sustain that growth, while others grow and then stagnate. Acemoglu draws on an exceptionally rich set of examples over space and time to argue that differences in institutions--political governance and the inclusiveness of the political and economic system--explain the differences in economics success across nations and over time. Acemoglu also discusses how institutions evolve and the critical role institutional change plays in economic success or failure. Along the way, he explains why previous explanations for national economic success are inadequate. The conversation closes with a discussion of the implications of the arguments for foreign aid and attempts by the wealthy nations to help nations that are poor.