Perspective

Authors Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson are economists, so the most important feature of their perspective is that they share the methods and questions of the economics profession as a whole. First, they are interested in determining why some nations are rich and why others are poor, one of economics' most important and earliest questions. Second, they are inclined to give largely economic explanations of these differences, in that they do not appeal to culture or sociological factors but rather facts about how institutions affect economic growth. For example, the authors focus largely on how political institutions affect economic incentives, as when extractive institutions lead to perverse incentives for economic growth.

Another important feature of the authors' perspective is that they pursue a particular kind of approach, namely an institutionalist explanation of economic development. In this sense, the authors deny that geography and culture are very important in...