@article {63891,
	title = {Political Losers as Barriers to Economic Development},
	year = {2000},
	month = {Jan 11, 2000},
	abstract = {American Economic Review, 90, 126-130Per capita income in many sub{\textendash}Saharan African countries, such as Chad and Niger, is less than 1/30th of that of the United States. Most economists and social scientists suspect that this is in part due to institutional failures that stop these societies from adopting the best technologies. A particularly interesting historical example comes from the diffusion of railways in the 19th century. While railways are regarded as a key technology driving the Industrial Revolution, there were large lags in their diffusion. For example, in 1850 the United States had 14,518 km of track, Britain 9,797 km, and Germany 5,856 km; in the Russian and Hapsburg empires there were just 501 km and 1,357 km, respectively (all date from Brian R. Mitchell [1993]). Why do societies, as in this example, fail to adopt the best available technologies?},
	author = {Robinson, James A.}
}
