Week 11 – Causes of Divergent Development Between Countries: An Institutional Approach

Our discussion is based on this week’s readings:

  1. Hillmann, Henning. 2013. “Economic Institutions and the State: Insights from Economic History.” Annual Review of Sociology 39(1):251–73.
  2. Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson. 2001. The colonial origins of comparative development: An empirical investigation. American Economic Review 91:1369-1401

I recommend you finish the readings before carefully going over my PowerPoint presentation with voiceover where I explain important ideas and concepts covered in the readings. I also present data from other papers that you might find interesting.

Watch James Robinson’s TEDx talk where he discusses “Why do some states enjoy wealth, security, health and nutrition while others face poverty, unemployment, lack of health care and safety?”

Lecture Posts Questions:

On the comments section below, address the following questions (answers should be at least 100 words in length and posted by Sunday – This is how participation points are assessed. Please save your comments in a safe document before attempting to post it.

  1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?
  2. From the readings, what isn’t clear? What surprised you the most? Any thoughts you would like to share?
  3. What are the main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk?

 

15 thoughts on “Week 11 – Causes of Divergent Development Between Countries: An Institutional Approach

  1. 1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?

    I was just a bit confused in the presentation that discussed national and religious heritage. I don’t know if I am correct but is the slide trying to say that even though there were colonizers that were of British heritage the colonies still developed their own independent heritage? I was caught by surprise when I learned that Canada was part of the New World colonies I was not taught about that in school and always believed that Canada was an exclusion for some reason. I was also caught by surprise when I read that Canada had heavy voting restrictions such that they were among the leaders of restrictions with the United States.

    2. From the readings, what isn’t clear? What surprised you the most? Any thoughts you would like to share?

    In the Hillmann, Henning. 2013 reading I was confused about how a state can protect private property rights can be quick to take it away. From what I understand it was a way to prevent the elite from having too much power but also allowing them to own property. I found it interesting when the article discussed how cultural beliefs lead to differences in institutions. I thought the article, “ The colonial origins of comparative development: An empirical investigation” was also interesting because I was able to understand how the success of the colonizers that settled in certain regions led to those regions becoming one of the most developed countries. For example, Figure 1 shows how the United States had a higher GDP in 1995 while they also had a lower mortality rate of colonizers who settled there compared to the other countries. I thought this made sense because the graph shows how the countries that the colonizers were not able to benefit from through the land and its resources were not able to be as successful with its development.

    3. What are the main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk?

    Poor countries have much less educated people, less healthy people, worse technology, live shorter lives, and worse government services like infrastructure. Poor countries and rich countries are organized in different ways. Poor countries are organized in ways that block the incentives and opportunities for their people. Patents protected intellectual property rights. Carlos Slim made a fortune in Mexico from a monopoly, but they blocked other people’s incentives and opportunities. Bill Gate’s fortune was made in America through his innovative ideas that benefited all of society. Carlos Slim had a monopoly in Mexico where he will not have anti-trust laws enforced on him for blocking the opportunities of others whereas Bill Gates is able to have anti-trust laws enforced on him for his innovations. Having a democracy where political power is broadly distributed there will be less corruption among the rich.

  2. Question #1:
    This week’s Presentation helped me understand the readings in a much better fashion and supported many key ideas of what the authors were portraying in their books. What I felt that this all came down to, is Colonization. There were different policies in place and as a result, this created various institutions. These institutions were then important because they relate to expropriation risks. While I was a little confused on this term at first, I began to understand that it was a factor relating to property and investment rights. I think that the graphs did a great job in adding to my knowledge of where many countries fall between the line of expropriation versus GDP per capita, and it of course did not shock me that the U.S fell on the upper side of the y -axis. What really captured my interest was how voting rights were observed, in grasping if the elite people of the world held great amounts of power to impact the political and economic institutions. Specifically, those places exhibiting high amounts of inequality. Based on the presented data, Canada and the U.S had the highest percentages of people voting as a direct result of the requirements they held for voters. This alerted my attention to the change in voting now, especially with our current climate. Therefore, I didn’t think anything was too confusing as this powerpoint was very detailed and after reviewing the slides, it successfully defended the reasoning behind the gap in countries.

    Question #2:
    There are many ways for a country to be richer than another. This can be caused by historical events which sort of gives a head start for countries to start accumulating wealth (colonization) or dependent on the levels of social and political inequality that’s present. Inequality in this sense is important because it somewhat determines how economically good/bad a country is doing. However, some things that I found confusing in the “Economic Institutions…” piece by Henning Hillmann were the elements behind contracts. So anyone having a relationship where they are involved in a contract, must do so as a private client? As in they must have some sort of ownership or property right to be part of this contract enforcement idea. I was confused whether or not this notion only applied to someone who’s particularly consuming any regular good in a trade-off or only to an individual who is privately dealing with investments and other important transactions. In other words, who exactly can participate within this type of trade?

    Question #3:
    The main takeaways I’ve received from James Robinson’s TEDx talk, are the comparisons between a rich well off country versus poor third world countries and the contributions which make it so. Robinson’s view of North and South Korea shows how technology is a large drive of wealth between these two neighboring areas. With countries that are highly technologically advanced like the U.S, means that they are far more affluent and can afford to have such luxuries. Hence, why living in New York is very expensive. Another drive of success is with opportunities dependent on location. Living in America “where you go to chase your dreams”, holds to have better chances at getting education and a respectable job. Whereas, in countries like Africa, because of low government assistance and few resources, you won’t have any opportunities to strive from. This holds true with the Bill Gates in America versus Carlos Slim from Mexico example. How both of them are rich come from different sources of opportunity. Gates retained his fortunes from building up Microsoft, whereas Slim had created monopolies. While Gates inventions provided jobs and windows for people to use his software, Slim’s was quite the opposite. By owning a bunch of companies and having wealth build up as a result, Slim is prospering indeed but through another way unlike Bill Gates.

  3. 1.The PowerPoint Lecture was clear. Everything was informative and reinforced my understanding of the readings. I was so glad to learn that we did not have to memorize the variables and the math equations, because I was trying to do memorize them until I heard the PowerPoint.

    2.The reading was clear. The reading discusses new empirical work regarding economic history. The reading discusses that institutions are important for market transitions, industrialization, trade, and economic growth. The empirical work explains the long-term consequences and how all the factors contribute to state-building. We are introduced to fundamental rules and constraints that are applied and influenced by institutions. The reading talks about contract enforcement and sanctions that helped fortify trade and international commerce. We also learn about the politics that went into creating institutions. We also learn about private institutions and the mechanisms that help create different institutions.
    The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation discusses what causes the large difference in income across countries. The reading explains that institutions do matter when speaking up the differences between countries. Rich countries can afford better institutions that cause the divergence between countries. The reading informs us about “extractive states” that were established due to colonization. The policy did not protect private property and was not regulated. It extracted as much natural resources to the colonizer. Discussing Neo- groups who tried to copy the European institutions with strong emphasis on private property and regulations against government power. The reading mentions that colonies that had a substantial rate or mortality are poor in present day then the colonies that were healthy for Europeans. The reading also states that some countries may be poor because of worse or bad institutions. We are introduced to ethnolinguistic fragmentation and distance from the equator. Ethnolinguistic fragmentation can cause political instability. The reading explains a cause that influenced the creation of institutions, and mortality rates was a major reason. The reading also talks about the encomienda, which was used to run a monopoly, and extract resources from colonies. Also, that Europeans developed the institution of slavery. We read about institutions of law and order during colonialism paved the way for the institutions we have in present day.

    3.James Robinson discusses why nations fail and why nations succeed. He explains why some countries are poor, while others are rich. Robinson argues that the structure of politics within nations play an important role determining if the nation will succeed or fail. He explains that poor and rich countries are organized differently. Claiming that the infrastructure of nations creates incentives and opportunities for people. Robinson explains that poor countries are not organized well, and lack incentives and opportunities for people, allowing poverty to flourish. He discusses that a prosperous society needs a set of institutions. Robinson mentions that poor countries have worse technology than rich countries, Less educated individuals, worse government services, and bad infrastructure. Robinson explains beneficial institutions that he referred to as inclusive economic institutions, and he also discussed extractive institutions. He emphasizes on the importance of the distribution of political power and describes that nations need to have a strong state to enforce laws. His main idea is that if the state become a tool for serving private interest rather than public interest, the state will have bad fiscal policies and unstable debt issues. The solution will be to find a way to reconcile the political institutions.

  4. 1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?
    Everything from the PowerPoint was clear

    2. From the readings, what isn’t clear? What surprised you the most? Any thoughts you would like to share?
    From the reading I realized and learned the definition of institution which is a set of rules which determines who gets what, who’s allowed to make decisions and what actions are allowed based on the individual’s actions. So basically what I got from that, I could be wrong is that our economy and the way we live and what we earn or etc is governed by set rules.

    3. What are the main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk?
    The main take away from the ted talks are reasons as to why some nations are poor and others are well off. the difference between poor countries and rich countries are that the poor countries aren’t as advanced in technology like the rich countries are. Another issue that was pointed out in the ted talk is that poor countries have less educated people, more unhealthy people and bad infrastructure in comparisons to rich countries. A lot of these issues boils down to organization. The rich countries and the poor countries are organized in different way.

  5. Q.1-From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?

    A.1- Based on viewing the power point presentation, I pretty much understood all the important topics that were explained. The only part I had trouble understanding at first was about the methodological approach. Fortunately, I went back to go over how it uses mortality rates to gain a better understanding of it. Topics ranging from the types of colonization and settlements to Institutional persistence were pretty much clear, including everything reaching up to the main conclusion in the presentation.

    Q.2- From the readings, what isn’t clear? What surprised you the most? Any thoughts you would like to share?

    A.2- As I read through the readings, I found most things to be clear without much confusion. For example, one thing I found to be a bit difficult to understand in one of the readings was contract enforcement. After reading over that specific part of the passage, I was able to conceptualize that it is a thing due to the ordering of economic changes. This had to be one of the very few things I actually had to go over and read to gain a better idea. One thing I’d like to share about the overall basis of both readings is that I believe there should be a better way for the authors to grasp the readers attention since at some points I caught myself losing focus as I went about some pages.

    Q.3- What are the main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk?

    A.3- In James Robinson’s TED talk, he pointed out a few important takeaways in his presentation. One main takeaway was the fact that in order to have a prosperous society, the formation of institutions needs to be a thing. This is for the sole purpose of bringing out the many skills, talents and ideas of individuals in these societies. Another main takeaway, has to do with the differences between rich and poor countries since poor countries don’t have access to advanced technology and resources as much as rich countries. This is what causes poor nations to barely survive since it results in people being less educated and more likely to be unhealthy.

  6. 1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?
    The PowerPoint presentation was very clear as it discusses the impact or influence institutions has on the economic performance by focusing on the countries that were colonized by Europeans. It was also interesting to see how the different historical setting produce a different economic outcome in the streams of migration. Also, and how these specific laws and policies that were implemented by colonization has set different institutional changes in the different countries that play a role in these countries economic. This is one of the reasons to explain the economic disparity among the different societies or countries and why some countries are advancing in economic growth while other countries struggle.

    2. From the readings, what isn’t clear? What surprised you the most? Any thoughts you would like to share?
    So far, the readings are clear. It is interesting to see that all the readings we have done during the semester are making sense and giving us a greater understanding as to why countries and societies has different economic performance by which the readings connect it the countries that were exploited by Europeans. Colonization has resulted in different policies outcomes on the different countries mortality rate and large gap in income per capita across countries. The countries that implemented better institutions were able to secure property rights and policies were in the favor of the people because more focus was invested in the physical and human capital aspect those society. Whereas, it was the opposite of the countries that did not created good institutions.

    3. What are the main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk?
    The main takeaway from James Robinson’s TEDx talks is that he differentiae poor and rich countries by using the example of looking at Korean peninsula at night. That poor countries are structure in a way that prevent economic and social mobility to its people by blocking incentive and opportunities which result in poverty. Whereas, rich countries systems are structure in a way that create opportunities and incentive to its people to elevate themselves. Also, James talk about the patent system that society should have a set of institutions that protects the rights, creativity, and innovations ideas by granting inventors a patent for their inventions and preventing others from using their ideas.

  7. 1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?

    I believe the presentation was very clear. I do want to make one comment. I think that it is infinitely interesting that the socioeconomic ramifications of the colonial carve out of territories is still effective today. Perhaps the carving out of African countries was the worst and most divisive. It is common knowledge that colonialists ignored important cultural and tribal borders within the continent. These actions indubitably slowed the sociological and economic development of the countries in the region.

    2. From the readings, what isn’t clear? What surprised you the most? Any thoughts you would like to share?

    The readings were very informative. I appreciated Acemoglu et al.’s exploration of the variety of colonization policies. Before this reading, it had never occurred to me that colonization might have occurred with any rhyme or reason besides to acquire total exploitation of natives and/or resources. For instance, the author’s discussion of “extraction states” was what I believed to be the only way of historical colonization. As such, I was surprised that other types of colonization existed, and that migration from European countries was experienced by varying social classes, not just extremely poor indentured servants.
    3. What are the main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk?

    In James Robinson’s TEDx, he discusses the sad reality that over one billion people in the world struggle to exist on less than two dollars a day in the developing world. He discusses how different nations have different institutions that create different economic institutions, which are the cause of these drastic differences in global inequality. In the developing world, the lack of opportunity is so pervasive, billions of people struggle to survive. James Robinson speaks about Bill Gates and Carlos Slim, and how they came into wealth. Carlos Slim’s wealth did not create opportunities, and Bill Gates created wealth by creating opportunities. Robinson talks about extractive economic institutions, which are rules in society that prevent incentives for growth and opportunity in countries. Robinson makes these comparisons and demonstrates the vast differences between societies and how their lack of or availability for opportunity determines social and economic inequality.

  8. From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?
    The PowerPoint was clear. It helped go in dept with reading.
    From the readings, what isn’t clear? What surprised you the most? Any thoughts you would like to share?
    I do not have any questions about the reading. Everything was clear.
    What are the main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk he main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk?
    The main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk about the differences between poor and rich countries, where a person from a rich country would have more opportunities than a person that is from a poor country. He states in the video that “poor countries have less educated individuals, do not have a lot of healthy people, live shorter lives, they don’t have the best technology, and poor infrastructures”.

  9. 1. The powerpoint was very clear and informative. One question I have is which type of colony, as describe in slide 25, from the first two was more extractive? Obviously it wasn’t the last category, since those are the ones that Acemoglu and Robinson say adopted different institutions

    2. The readings were both very interesting and clear. Something that surprised me was the difference between Neo-Europe colonies and other colonies. I had often wondered why such a large numbers of settlers migrated to the US and Canada as opposed to colonies in Africa and Latin America which have a vast amount of resource, so it was interesting to learn that the number of mortality was a big factor in that decision. The first two points on why extractive institutions persist, that it may be too costly to establish better institutions and that a small elite benefits more, were also very interesting because the elite in those colonies will obviously not introduce better institutions if it would threaten their position and cost them money. The point on how when the elite is small in population they get a larger share of the revenues so there is a greater incentive to be extractive was also interesting, because in most of these colonies the elite was very small while the natives who lived there were larger in population but remained enslaved.

    3. The main idea I took from James Robinson’s TED Talk is that the difference in organization in poor countries versus rich countries is what creates poverty. Rich countries have economic institutions that create incentives and opportunities. These institutions are also often inclusive in they harness the talent and innovations of people of different backgrounds. Poorer countries, on the other hand, have institutions that create incentives and opportunities for a select few. Poorer countries also allow for the creation of monopolies which results in wealth for him, but not for others. Monopolies block other people incentives and opportunities. Robinsons call these rules in society that impede opportunities and allow for things like monopolies have extractive institutions. The main reason why countries end up with either inclusive or extractive institutions is politics. Countries that had countries with little distribution of power, like oligarchies, would go on to establish extractive institutions that benefit a select few. Countries with countries with distribution of power, like democracies, would do the opposite. Another reason was the ability and the willingness of the state to enforce its laws that prevent extractive institutions.

  10. 1.From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?
    From this week’s powerpoint everything was pretty clear and understandable for me. What I found interesting was how much of a difference North America colonization ended up resulting compared to Latin America colonization. Due to the wages equaling the same to those earned back in Britain individuals who moved to the New World were able to earn higher and live a better quality of life. The English wages were double the amount of Iberian wages that Latin American citizens earned during colonization in turn causing North America to improve rapidly economically. My comment is, was this done purposefully? Did the colonizers want to keep competition back from developing? Isn’t this unethical?

    2.From the readings, what isn’t clear? What surprised you the most? Any thoughts you would like to share?
    In the Hillmann, Henning 2013 reading I felt like the reading was clear and concise except for one part that I did not quite comprehend. The purpose of contract enforcement for international trade is to promote gains and economic growth by reducing the transaction costs and to raise the chances of commitment. By implementing rules like monitoring who makes transactions with each other and by limiting the range of each party’s activities it helps control these transactions. My question is that aside from businesses not wanting to work with a company that breaches a contract, what if the company violates trade rules without breaching the contract. Could businesses cut ties with a company that is unethical and performing shady? Is that enough of a reason for companies to stop business if contracts are not breached while behaving unethical?

    3. What are the main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk?
    The main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk was the fact that in order to have a well functioning country where citizens are economically and socially stable you would need multiple institutions to keep different parts of the country intact. Institutions like schools to spread education, banks to spread money transactions, hospitals to care for the sick, and etc. Poor countries that lack access to advanced institutions are hindered from growing as a society; Rich countries stay rich because their institutions have enough money to give the citizens of that nation their proper needs. Poor countries do not gain from their institutions nearly as much as the richer ones because theirs lacks the financial component. An example of this is higher education, in the United States there are private and specialized high schools in good neighborhoods that could benefit an individual’s earning potential in the future. A student who lives in a country like Nigeria for example has to go to their local school and may not have the option to pick which institution to attend.

  11. 1. The powerpoint was clear and well organized given the amount of information that it had I did have to replay a few of them. As always, it simplified the topics in the readings as well.
    2. The readings were also clear. However, I feel that the Hillman reading put a few things in perspective for me about the world in general and how it’s set up and it provided a different view on institutions and how they are structured.
    3. One of the main takeaways was the differences in people’s living situations between countries. He mentioned how poor countries have less access to advanced technology than rich countries do. Adding on to that, is what was mentioned on the way that countries are organized and not that they are either poor or rich. From his point, this means that in poor countries organization hinders people’s access to opportunities and causes poverty, whereas in rich countries it creates opportunities for people. Another takeaway was how institutions can sometimes allow for people to succeed such as the patent system that protected peoples ideas and inventions.

  12. 1. From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?

    I know how the divergence occurred, but I do not know the why of it. Why did these sparks allow for the divergence? Eventually creating rich and poor countries. Is it possible to change? Acquiring economic prosperity.

    In the Factor Endowments paper, I found their main hypothesis interesting. To get more equality we need more democratic political institutions. If the other person had won the election do you think, we would have been on a turn for fascism and more inequality, not just economic but also social? With our country as the divide further increases, with who is red and who is blue? To achieve full equality, do we need more investment in our schools, our social programs? There is always going to be inequality, but there needs to be some sort of line. Because although the united states invest, they don’t invest enough.

    2. From the readings, what isn’t clear? What surprised you the most? Any thoughts you would like to share?

    From the readings, I did not really understand the fundamental problem of exchange. Does fundamental problem exchange occur when a business deal is not profitable, but the deal is contractional?

    I like the reading they gave an interesting perspective to the starting of global inequality and the effects of European colonialism. How advanced society would be if there was no colonialism? Would countries be “developing” still if they were left alone? Would we have prospered economically?

    3. What are the main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk?

    The main takeaway I grasped was the investment of why some countries prosper and others do not. It is the difference between the interest of the public vs the private. Although it was not clear, countries seem to do better when they attend to their public more. The United States prosper more if we cared more about the public and not only what the richest want?

  13. 1.The PowerPoint was really helpful for this week’s because the readings were challenging to understand. The concept was more complex in the reading; the PowerPoint, for example, slide 9 to get a better understanding of the whole idea on why some countries are richer than others. The different types of colonization and settlements were an interesting topic to learn about since I have never known why countries like Latin American, rich in raw materials, do not have more money than the U.S. or U.K.

    2. The readings were not as clear for me compare to the power points because I had to keep reading the text twice in order to understand the style and main idea. I understand it was not writing for the general public however, even after knowing the terms and concept of this class there were some times while reading I did not know what the text was trying to the point across. However, the PowerPoint did help understand the reading’s perspective.

    3. The main take away from the ted talk was comparing rich to developing countries, developing countries have less educated people that live a shorter life. Why is there such a difference between the two, most of the poor countries have resources but are wasted. The real poor counties are poor is because of their organization creating more opportunities for the citizens. He talked about the patent system, the government protects your property. Economic institutions are made to harvest talent and innovation in any field. He brings up how bill gates’ success as his business grew made more jobs and opportunity while this does not work for poor countries like Mexico. Political power prevents the monopoly to only be for one person but it’s distributed equality to everyone.

  14. From my PowerPoint presentation, what isn’t clear? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share?
    From the powerpoint presentation, what I didn’t quite understand was the topic on “extractive states”. I understand that these new Belgian colonizations were mostly focused on transferring goods to the colonizers, but did the Neo-Europes get their idea of checks and balances in government and the importance of private property from them? I think this was a good point to bring up in this powerpoint because it allows us to see the very beginning of inequality as well as having an idea of a possibility that may have started inequality among countries. This may also be one of the reasons why there is so much differences in wages all over the world. This POV of inequality/poverty shown throughout history gave me a different view of inequality and it goes beyond the inequality/poverty problems all over the world today, it kind of gives us a broad view of all the different inequalities around the world.

    From the readings, what isn’t clear? What surprised you the most? Any thoughts you would like to share?
    Overall, I believe that the readings were very clear. When I first started reading them, I was a little confused because I was thinking to myself what does history have to do with global inequality and poverty, but now I see it in a completely different way. I was amazed at how going back hundreds of years,gave us an explanation of why economic institutions are so different in todays world. Although there is no record of measurements for economical preformance at that time, social scientist were still able to connect history with present problems.
    What are the main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk?
    The main takeaways from James Robinson’s TEDx talk is the differences that he points out between rich and poor countries as well as the two richest people from two different countries. He explains the differences between the living situations between different countries. For example, he mentions how people from poorer countries are less educated and unhealthier, but one thing to take into consideration is the opportunities and the money that these individuals have. For example, in a less developed country, there aren’t many schools for children to attend. There are many individuals that have to travel over an hour in order to get to school. Also, if their family is struggling financially, then there are very high chances that their child is going to be taught how to work instead of being sent to school. These individuals are also unhealthier because there isn’t much government help because their government doesn’t have the money to provide these things which may lead up to not being able to seek medical attention annually like in more developed countries. He also discussed the two richest people from two different countries in order to imply how the PPP is different all over the world and the cost of living may be different from one country compared to another which might be the reason why they are both rich, but with different amounts of money.

  15. 1. On slide 24, you mention that people’s income would increase drastically if they didn’t die. Is this because they exploited the natives of the land to their own advantage or is it because the mother country would provide for them? I’m a bit confused about this.

    2. I thought it was very interesting how the voter rights were compared and assessed between the countries. It was very interesting to see in the charts, and your powerpoint presentation clarified it even more. However, I don’t understand why the United States and Canada would have such high accessibility to voting if having higher inequality benefitted them. If voting was made more accessible in South America, there would have been more equality and probably an increase in development. The U.S and Canada, however, could have benefitted off of placing literacy restrictions or a wealth requirement so that the rich and educated could remain in power… I’m just trying to put myself in the shoes of a selfish colonizer, that’s all haha.

    3. I LOVED James Robinson’s TEDx talk! It clarified so many of my questions and made my understanding of this lesson much more thorough. My main takeaway of this TEDx talk was that economic prosperity relies on institution inclusiveness and increased opportunity for the nation. I found it very interesting how he analyzed the incomes of Bill Gates and Carlos Slim and compared the impact of GDP each had. If having a more inclusive approach to better personal wealth is not only beneficial for the person acquiring the money, but for the nation as a whole, why are the rich so hesitant to donate their money to the poor? Or why don’t they donate more?

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