Publications by Author: Robinson%2C%20James%20A.

2014
Africa’s Development in Historical Perspective
Bates, Robert H, Nathan Nunn, James A Robinson, and Emmanuel Akyeampong, ed. 2014. Africa’s Development in Historical Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract

This edited volume addresses the root causes of Africa’s persistent poverty through an investigation of its longue durée history. It interrogates the African past through disease and demography, institutions and governance, African economies and the impact of the export slave trade, colonialism, Africa in the world economy, and culture’s influence on accumulation and investment. Several of the chapters take a comparative perspective, placing Africa’s developments aside other global patterns. The readership for this book spans from the informed lay reader with an interest in Africa, academics and undergraduate and graduate students, policy makers, and those in the development world.

2012
Friedman, Thomas L, James A Robinson, and Daron Acemoglu. 2012. “Why Nations Fail”. Publisher's Version
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Robinson, James A, and Daron Acemoglu. 2012. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. Random House. Publisher's Version Abstract

Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?

Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.

Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including:

  • China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West?
  • Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?
  • What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions?


Why Nations Fail
will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

Robinson, James A, and Daron Acemoglu. 2012. “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (Book Review).” The Economist. Publisher's Version
2010
Natural Experiments of History
Robinson, James A, and Jared Diamond. 2010. Natural Experiments of History. Harvard University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract

Some central questions in the natural and social sciences can't be answered by controlled laboratory experiments, often considered to be the hallmark of the scientific method. This impossibility holds for any science concerned with the past. In addition, many manipulative experiments, while possible, would be considered immoral or illegal. One has to devise other methods of observing, describing, and explaining the world.

In the historical disciplines, a fruitful approach has been to use natural experiments or the comparative method. This book consists of eight comparative studies drawn from history, archeology, economics, economic history, geography, and political science. The studies cover a spectrum of approaches, ranging from a non-quantitative narrative style in the early chapters to quantitative statistical analyses in the later chapters. The studies range from a simple two-way comparison of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, to comparisons of 81 Pacific islands and 233 areas of India. The societies discussed are contemporary ones, literate societies of recent centuries, and non-literate past societies. Geographically, they include the United States, Mexico, Brazil, western Europe, tropical Africa, India, Siberia, Australia, New Zealand, and other Pacific islands.

In an Afterword, the editors discuss how to cope with methodological problems common to these and other natural experiments of history.

2007
Robinson, James A, Daron Acemoglu, María Angélica Bautista, and Pablo Querubín. 2007. “Economic and Political Inequality in Development: The Case of Cundinamarca, Colombia”. Abstract
Is inequality harmful for economic growth? Is the underdevelopment of Latin America related to its unequal distribution of wealth? A recently emerging consensus claims not only that economic inequality has detrimental effects on economic growth in general, but also that differences in economic inequality across the American continent during the 19th century are responsible for the radically different economic performances of the north and south of the continent. In this paper we investigate this hypothesis using unique 19th century micro data on land ownership and political office holding in the state of Cundinamarca, Colombia. Our results shed considerable doubt on this consensus. Even though Cundinamarca is indeed more unequal than the Northern United States at the time, within Cundinamarca municipalities that were more unequal in the 19th century (as measured by the land gini) are more developed today. Instead, we argue that political rather than economic inequality might be more important in understanding long-run development paths and document that municipalities with greater political inequality, as measured by political concentration, are less developed today. We also show that during this critical period the politically powerful were able to amass greater wealth, which is consistent with one of the channels through which political inequality might affect economic allocations. Overall our findings shed doubt on the conventional wisdom and suggest that research on long-run comparative development should investigate the implications of political inequality as well as those of economic inequality.
Also NBER Working Paper No. 13208.
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Robinson, James A, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and Davide Cantoni. 2007. “From Ancien Régime to Capitalism: The French Revolution as a Natural Experiment”. Abstract
In this paper we exploit the invasion of Europe, particularly Germany, by French Revolutionary armies as a ‘natural experiment’to investigate the causal effect of the institutions of the ancien régime on economic development. A central hypothesis which can account for comparative development within Europe is that economic growth emerged …first in places which earliest escaped ancien régime and feudal institutions. However, though there is a correlation between these two events, this does not demonstrate that it was the collapse of the ancien régime that caused the rise of capitalism. This is because there may be problems of reverse causation and omitted variable bias. We show how the institutional reforms (essentially the abolition of the ancien régime) brought by the French in Germany can be exploited to resolve these problems. These reforms were akin to an exogenous change in institutions unrelated to the underlying economic potential of the areas reformed. We can therefore compare the economic performance of the areas reformed to those not reformed before and after the Revolutionary period to examine the impact of the reforms. The evidence we present is consistent with the hypothesis that the institutions of the ancien régime did indeed impede capitalism.
In this paper I discuss what Mexico can learn from the economic and political history of the United States about how to facilitate the creation of a dynamic innovative industrial economy. The challenges facing Mexico are how to overcome the institutional and economic overhang from the long period of one-party rule under the PRI. Though democracy has finally arrived, the form that this rule took has in many ways shaped the initial conditions in which the new democracy must function. Of these many conditions, key ones are the very unequal distribution of power and wealth that arose during this period. These inequalities were not simply a coincidence, they were a natural outcome of the strategy that the PRI used to consolidate and sustain its power (see Haber, Klein, Maurer and Middlebrook, 2006). Why and how do these inequalities matter for the future economic prospects of Mexico? I illustrate the issues at stake by an analysis of two critical periods in the history of the United States. One, the US South after the Civil War, is a period of failed reform. The other, the Populist and Progressive movements from around 1880 to1920, is an experience of successful reform. In both instances the main issue was whether not to tackle critical inequalities of power and influence. In the U.S. South the victorious North abandoned the attempt to challenge the real power structures after 1877. In consequence the Southern economy stagnated for the next 80 years and a highly unequal and divisive system perpetuated itself. The story during the Progressive era was different. The Federal state challenged the "Robber Barons," monopolies and political bosses who engaged in endemic political fraud and corruption. These interventions helped to sustain the dynamic nature of the Northern and Midwestern economy and facilitated rapidly falling inequality over the subsequent half century.
Robinson, James A, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and Pierre Yared. 2007. “Reevaluating the Modernization Hypothesis”. Abstract
This paper revisits and critically reevaluates the widely-accepted modernization hypothesis which claims that per capita income causes the creation and the consolidation of democracy. We argue that existing studies …find support for this hypothesis because they fail to control for the presence of omitted variables. There are many underlying historical factors that affect both the level of income per capita and the likelihood of democracy in a country, and failing to control for these factors may introduce a spurious relationship between income and democracy. We show that controlling for these historical factors by including …fixed country effects removes the correlation between income and democracy, as well as the correlation between income and the likelihood of transitions to and from democratic regimes. We argue that this evidence is consistent with another well-established approach in political science, which emphasizes how events during critical historical junctures can lead to divergent political-economic development paths, some leading to prosperity and democracy, others to relative poverty and non-democracy. We present evidence in favor of this interpretation by documenting that the …fixed effects we estimate in the post-war sample are strongly associated with historical variables that have previously been used to explain diverging development paths within the former colonial world.
2006
Robinson, James A, and Daron Acemoglu. 2006. “Persistence of Power, Elites and Institutions”. Abstract
We construct a model of simultaneous change and persistence in institutions. The model consists of landowning elites and workers, and the key economic decision concerns the form of economic institutions regulating the transaction of labor (e.g., competitive markets versus labor repression). The main idea is that equilibrium economic institutions are a result of the exercise of de jure and de facto political power. A change in political institutions, for example a move from nondemocracy to democracy, alters the distribution of de jure political power, but the elite can intensify their investments in de facto political power, such as lobbying or the use of paramilitary forces, to partially or fully offset their loss of de jure power. In the baseline model, equilibrium changes in political institutions have no effect on the (stochastic) equilibrium distribution of economic institutions, leading to a particular form of persistence in equilibrium institutions, which we refer to as invariance. When the model is enriched to allow for limits on the exercise of de facto power by the elite in democracy or for costs of changing economic institutions, the equilibrium takes the form of a Markov regime-switching process with state dependence. Finally, when we allow for the possibility that changing political institutions is more difficult than altering economic institutions, the model leads to a pattern ofcaptured democracy, whereby a democratic regime may survive, but choose economic institutions favoring the elite. The main ideas featuring in the model are illustrated using historical examples from the U.S. South, Latin America and Liberia.
Robinson, James A, Mario Chacón, and Ragnar Torvik. 2006. “When is Democracy an Equilibrium?: Theory and Evidence from Colombia's 'La Violencia'”. Abstract
The conventional wisdom in political science is that for a democracy to be consolidated, all groups must have a chance to attain power. If they do not then they will subvert democracy and choose to …fight for power. In this paper we show that this wisdom is, if not totally incorrect, seriously incomplete. This is so because although the probability of winning an election increases with the size of a group, so does the probability of winning a …fight. Thus in a situation where all groups have a high chance of winning an election, they may also have a high chance of winning a …fight. Indeed, in a natural model, we show that democracy may never be consolidated in such a situation. Rather, democracy may only be stable when one group is dominant. We provide a test of a key aspect of our model using data from La Violencia, a political confl‡ict in Colombia during the years 1946-1950 between the Liberal and Conservative parties. Consistent with our results, and contrary to the conventional wisdom, we show that …fighting between the parties was more intense in municipalities where the support of the parties was more evenly balanced.
2005
Robinson, James A, and Sebastián Mazzuca. 2005. “Political Conflict and Power-sharing in the Origins of Modern Colombia”. Abstract
In this paper we present historical evidence and a theoretical analysis of the origins of political stability and instability in Colombia for the period 1850-1950, and their relationship to political, particularly electoral, institutions. We show that the driving force behind institutional change over this period, specifically the move to proportional representation (PR), was the desire of the Conservative and Liberal parties to come up with a way of credibly dividing power to avoid civil war and conflict, a force intensified by the brutal conflict of the War of a Thousand days between 1899 and 1902. The problem with majoritarian electoral institutions was that they did not allocate power in a way which matched the support of the parties in the population, thus encouraging conflict. The strategic advantage of PR was that it avoided such under-representation. The parties however could not initially move to PR because it was not 'fraud proof' so instead, in 1905, adopted the 'incomplete vote' which simply allocated 2/3 of the legislative seats to the winning party and 1/3 to the loser. This formula brought peace. The switch to PR arose when the Liberals became condent that they could solve problems of fraud. But it only happened because they were able to exploit a division within the Conservatives. The switch also possibly reflected a concern with the rising support for socialism and the desire to divide power more broadly. Our findings shed new light on the origins of electoral systems and the nature of political con ict and its resolution.
Robinson, James A, and Daron Acemoglu. 2005. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Cambridge University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract
This book develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. Different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Thus democracy is preferred by the majority of citizens, but opposed by elites. Dictatorship nevertheless is not stable when citizens can threaten social disorder and revolution. In response, when the costs of repression are sufficiently high and promises of concessions are not credible, elites may be forced to create democracy. By democratizing, elites credibly transfer political power to the citizens, ensuring social stability. Democracy consolidates when elites do not have strong incentives to overthrow it. These processes depend on the strength of civil society, the structure of political institutions, the nature of political and economic crises, the level of economic inequality, the structure of the economy, and the form and extent of globalization.
Winner, John Bates Clark Medal, American Economic Association, 2005
Winner, Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award, 2007
Winner, William H. Riker Award, Political Economy Section, 2007
2001
Robinson, James A. 2001. “Inefficient Redistribution”. Abstract

American Political Science Review, 95, 649-662

There are many well–developed theories that explain why governments redistribute income, but very few can explain why this often is done in a socially inefficient form. In the theory we develop, compared to efficient methods, inefficient redistribution makes it more attractive to stay in or enter a group that receives subsidies. When political institutions cannot credibly commit to future policy, and when the political influence of a group depends on its size, inefficient redistribution is a tool to sustain political power. Our model may account for the choice of inefficient redistributive policies in agriculture, trade, and the labor market. It also implies that when factors of production are less specific to a sector, inefficient redistribution may be more prevalent.

Among countries colonized by European powers during the past 500 years, those that were relatively rich in 1500 are now relatively poor. We document this reversal using data on urbanizations patterns and population density, which we argue, proxy for economic prosperity. This reversal weighs against a view that links economic development to geographic factors. Instead, we argue that the reversal reflects changes in the institutions resulting from European colonialism. The European interventions appears to have created an "institutional reversal" among these societies, meaning that Europeans were more likely to introduce institutions encouraging investment in regions that were previously poor. This institutional reversal accounts for the reversal in relative incomes. We provide further support for this view by documenting that the reversal in relative incomes took place during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and resulted from societies with good institutions taking advantage of the opportunity to industrialize.
This paper documents a reversal in relative incomes among the former European colonies. For example, the Mughals in India and the Aztecs and Incas in the Americas were among the richest civilizations in 1500, while the civilizations in North America, New Zealand, and Australia were less developed. Today the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia re an order of magnitude richer than the countries not occupying the territories of the Mughal, Aztec, and Inca Empires.

Robinson, James A. 2001. “Social Identity, Inequality, and Conflict”. Abstract

I extend the standard materialistic rational choice model of conflict to consider groups. In particular, I consider how the aggregate amount of conflict in society depends on which groups form and oppose each other. The study is motivated by empirical findings about the relationship between inequality, conflict, and economic development. I focus on a salient comparison: ethnic groups vs. social classes. I show that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, class conflict is not necessarily worse than ethnic conflict. In fact, ethnic conflict is general worse when the distribution of income is more equal. I also investigate the impact of the fact that while ethnicity is immutable, since there is social mobility, class is not. I show that the direct impact of mobility of conflict is as conventionally believed, but that there are important indirect effects which make the net effect ambiguous.

Robinson, James A. 2001. “A Theory of Political Transitions”. Abstract

We develop a theory of political transitions inspired by the experiences of Western Europe and Latin America. Nondemocratic societies are controlled by a rich elite. The initially disenfranchised poor can contest power by threatening revolution, especially when the opportunity cost is low, for example during recessions. The threat of revolution may force the elite to democratize. Democracy may not consolidate because it is redistributive, and so gives the elite an incentive to mount a coup. Highly unequal societies are less likely to consolidate democracy, and may end up oscillating between regimes and suffer substantial fiscal volatility.

2000
Robinson, James A. 2000. “Democratization or Repression?”. Abstract

European Economic Review, 44, 683-693

Regimes controlled by a rich elite often collapse and make way for democracy amidst widespread social unrest. Such regime changes are often followed by redistribution to the poor at the expense of the former elite. We argue that the reason why the elite may have to resort to full–scale democratization, despite its apparent costs to themselves, may be that lesser concessions would be viewed as a sign of weakness and spur further unrest and more radical demands. The elite may therefore be forced to choose between repression and the most generous concession, a transition to full democracy.

Robinson, James A. 2000. “Is Child Labor Inefficient?”. Abstract

Journal of Political Economy, 108, 663-679

We build a model of child labor and study its implications for welfare. We assume that there is at trade–off between child labor and the accumulation of human capital. Even if parents are altruistic and child labor is socially inefficient, it may arise in equilibrium because parents fail to fully internalize its negative effects. This occurs when bequests are zero or when capital markets are imperfect. We also study the effects of a simple ban on child labor and derive conditions under which it may be Pareto improving in general equilibrium. We show that the implications of child labor for fertility are ambiguous.

American Economic Review, 91, 1369–1401

We exploit differences in European mortality rates to estimate the effect of institutions on economic performance. Europeans adopted very different colonization policies in different colonies, with different associated institutions. In places where Europeans faced high mortality rates, they could not settle and were more likely to set up extractive institutions. These institutions persisted to the present. Exploiting differences in European mortality rates as an instrument for current institutions, we estimate large effects of institutions on income per capital. Once the effect of institutions is controlled, for countries in Africa or those closer to the equator do not have lower incomes.

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