For all dedicated macro economists and anyone who wants some
good news as to the future of the United State’s economy, Why Nations Fail is a
book that I highly recommended for you. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty is a new book by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Daron Acemoglu is the Killian Professor of Economics at MIT and James Robinson is the David Florence Professor of Government at Harvard University.
This delightful book is the most extensively researched and
easy to follow ‘pure’ economics book that I have read. I classify this as a ‘pure’
economics books as opposed to the recent and popular behavioral economics
books, such as those by Steven Levitt (see
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything), which themselves are also well researched and written but focus
on topics more familiar to a larger number of readers. The goal of Why Nations Fail is to
explain just that; why some nations fail while others succeed. This goal is
obtained by providing very simple concepts supported by an abundance of historical and
modern day case studies.
Don’t worry if you are an economics novice, Why Nations Fail
does not require any pre-requisite degrees, classes or knowledge of economics!
The book opens with a brief account of the recent events in
Egypt. As we are all aware, the citizens of Egypt have not been happy with
their plight and have recently risen up to precipitate changes within the
government. The interesting question that only time will answer is will a
regime change in Egypt lead to any increased prosperity for its citizens? This book explores the factors that will determine
the fate of Egyptians.
