Daron Acemoğlu Quote
The solution to the economic and political failure of nations today is to transform their extractive institutions toward inclusive ones. The vicious circle means that this is not easy. But it is not impossible, and the iron law of oligarchy is not inevitable. Either some preexisting inclusive elements in institutions, or the presence of broad coalitions leading the fight against the existing regime, or just the contingent nature of history, can break vicious circles. Just like the civil war in Sierra Leone, the Glorious Revolution in 1688 was a struggle for power. But it was a struggle of a very different nature than the civil war in Sierra Leone. Conceivably some in Parliament fighting to remove James II in the wake of the Glorious Revolution imagined themselves playing the role of the new absolutist, as Oliver Cromwell did after the English Civil War. But the fact that Parliament was already powerful and made up of a broad coalition consisting of different economic interests and different points of view made the iron law of oligarchy less likely to apply in 1688. And it was helped by the fact that luck was on the side of Parliament against James II. In the next chapter, we will see other examples of countries that have managed to break the mold and transform their institutions for the better, even after a long history of extractive institutions.
The solution to the economic and political failure of nations today is to transform their extractive institutions toward inclusive ones. The vicious circle means that this is not easy. But it is not impossible, and the iron law of oligarchy is not inevitable. Either some preexisting inclusive elements in institutions, or the presence of broad coalitions leading the fight against the existing regime, or just the contingent nature of history, can break vicious circles. Just like the civil war in Sierra Leone, the Glorious Revolution in 1688 was a struggle for power. But it was a struggle of a very different nature than the civil war in Sierra Leone. Conceivably some in Parliament fighting to remove James II in the wake of the Glorious Revolution imagined themselves playing the role of the new absolutist, as Oliver Cromwell did after the English Civil War. But the fact that Parliament was already powerful and made up of a broad coalition consisting of different economic interests and different points of view made the iron law of oligarchy less likely to apply in 1688. And it was helped by the fact that luck was on the side of Parliament against James II. In the next chapter, we will see other examples of countries that have managed to break the mold and transform their institutions for the better, even after a long history of extractive institutions.
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About Daron Acemoğlu
Born to Armenian parents in Istanbul, Acemoglu received a BA from the University of York in 1989, and a PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1992. He lectured at LSE for a year before joining the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005. Acemoglu is best known for his work on political economy. He has authored hundreds of papers, many of them with his long-time collaborators Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. With Robinson, he co-authored the books Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (2006) and Why Nations Fail (2012). The latter, an influential book on the role that institutions play in shaping nations' economic outcomes, receive wide scholarly and media attention. Described as a centrist, he believes in a regulated market economy. He regularly comments on political issues, economic inequality, and a variety of specific policies.
Acemoglu ranked third, behind Paul Krugman and Greg Mankiw, in the list of "Favorite Living Economists Under Age 60" in a 2011 survey among American economists. In 2015, he was named the most cited economist of the past 10 years per Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) data. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Acemoglu is the third most frequently cited author on college syllabi for economics courses after Mankiw and Krugman.