Essays on Why Nations Fail

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of foreign financial assistance on Haiti, the various types of rehabilitation programs undertaken using foreign aid, and the role of the government in developing healthcare facilities by analyzing a wide variety of source materials. In the absence of foreign aid, Haiti would have been worse off because of weak institutional structures and inadequate delivery mechanisms. Haiti is in the lowest quartile for all the wrong reasons—extreme poverty, poor health and sanitation, high unemployment, and collapse of institutional mechanisms. Haiti ranks 163 among 188 countries in terms of human development with 20 percent of ...

Why Nations Faillooks to the past as well as today’s world in order to answer the age old question of why some nations prosper while others fail. Historically some countries’ citizens are considered wealthy, their nations in rich material goods, education and freedoms while and others are perceived a generally poor, or divided by lines of wealth and poverty. It is obvious by looking at more universal factors of culture, weather, and geography that countries with similar external and internal factors can enjoy, or suffer different circumstances. North and South Korea and East and West Germany are evidence ...

Summary and Critique of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

The book Why Nations Fail: the Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson try to convey the incentives motivating individuals and the regulations influencing a nation’s economy and its possible outcomes. The result is an extremely valuable work providing loads of information based on chronology and geography and consists of highly appealing historical accounts involving the political and economic environment.

Drifting apart: chapter summary

This is one of the important chapters which traces the type of institutional drift, the evolution and significant junctures either away or towards inclusive institutions. The chapter tries to inform that most societies ...

Factors that Cause a State to fail with respect to Sudan

Various reasons are attributed to the fall of states and nations. These reasons range from the failure to control or rather the inability to of states to take charge of the processes within a given territory. The failure of states involves the interrelationships between patterns of authority, political control and institution building. Nations fail due to consumption by internal violence and the ceased delivering of political goods to their inhabitants. The failure of state involves the government’s lack of credibility and the nature of the country becomes illegitimate and questionable to the citizens. The major reasons that contribute to ...

Question One: Why Nations fail - so close yet so different

Different nations from around the world are endowed with different resources, which they harness to build their economies. These resources influence not only their economies but also the political significance of the state. More fundamentally, they affect the culture and values of governance that characterize public finance and governance. It is vital that corporate finance should be administered in tandem with democratic principles of governance. Unfortunately, corporate governance has been stained with vices such as nepotism, corruption, official lethargy and incompetence. Governance in economic and political institutions is directly correlated with the level of democratic maturity of a nation. Furthermore, ...

Summary of Acemoglu’s video

In this video, economist Daron Acemoglu explains why nations fail economically. He singles out “extractive” political institutions as the biggest impediment to a nation’s economic prosperity. Acemoglu defines “extractive” political institutions as those that place power in the hands of a few individuals. This scenario features unfair regulations and high market-entry barriers. These factors conjure to enrich a clique in the society, while inhibiting economic progress for the majority of the people (Acemoglu). He contrasts this with governments that have expanded democratic space by protecting property rights. Nations with such political institutions encourage entrepreneurship from their citizenry as well as attract ...