Most Popular Books by James A. Robinson

解答人類政治史上最大難題的偉大之書。──賈德．戴蒙 ,《槍炮、病菌與鋼鐵》作者 問題已經不只是「國家為什麼會失敗」，而是居然有國家能成功。 *** 為什麼有些國家能保障自由，有些國家卻宰割公民？還有些國家徒具形式，根本無法有效治理？ 自由，意謂不受他人力量宰制，無須時時生活在恐懼之中。可是，綜觀人類歷史數千年，自由十分罕見。多數時候，強者為所欲為，弱者任憑宰割。理當維持秩序的國家機器若非不存在，就是淪為壓迫的幫兇。為什麼會這樣？ 艾塞默魯與羅賓森教授回顧古今中外，引領讀者走訪一個又一個文明故事。從雅典城邦、阿拉伯與中東、非洲、夏威夷與大洋洲、前蘇聯、歐洲、中國與美國。兩位作者主張：國家機器強，社會更要強，互相制衡，踏入「窄廊」，自由才有保障。 本書結合兩位最優秀的政治與經濟學家，奠基於多年原創研究，建構一套清晰、具體的政治經濟學模型。非常適合回應當前全球關心的重大課題： ◆ 如何約束國家機器、進入通往自由的窄廊？這是西方國家的專利嗎？ ◆ 具有中國特色的自由，是自由嗎？專制國家締造經濟榮景後，能夠回頭保障公民自由嗎？數位極權國家崛起，會終結自由秩序嗎？ ◆ 國家在什麼狀況下無法繼續保障自由？國家機器失控，還是社會癱瘓國家？美國有可能成為下一個失去自由的國度嗎？臺灣呢？ 不折不扣的大歷史分析，民主起源論最精彩的一說。──朱敬一（中央研究院院士、特聘研究員） 本書特色 民主在退潮，自由在崩壞，身處動盪的時代， 馴服國家機器、保障公民自由的關鍵究竟何在？ 《國家為什麼會失敗》作者 跨越千年政治、經濟與歷史， 解答人類歷史上最大的政治難題。 作者簡介 戴倫．艾塞默魯（Daron Acemoglu） 麻省理工學院經濟學教授，曾任教於倫敦政經學院。2005年獲頒克拉克獎章（John Bates Clark Medal），這個獎專為四十歲以下對經濟學思想與知識有重大貢獻的經濟學家而設，是僅次於諾貝爾經濟學獎的榮耀，也是未來最熱門的諾貝爾獎人選。2016年再獲BBVA基金會前沿知識獎（BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award），表彰他在經濟、財務金融與管理學上的傑出貢獻。艾塞默魯是全球經濟學文獻引用次數最多的前十名經濟學者，他的論文產量驚人，是經濟學界最猛悍的新秀。 詹姆斯．羅賓森（James A. Robinson） 芝加哥大學哈里斯公共政策學院教授，既是政治學家也是經濟學家。他是世界知名的非洲與拉丁美洲專家，目前在玻利維亞、剛果、獅子山共和國、海地與哥倫比亞各國皆主持研究計畫，每年夏季會在哥倫比亞首都波哥大的安地斯大學授課。 譯者簡介 劉道捷 臺灣大學外國語文學系畢業，曾任國內財經專業報紙國際新聞中心主任，現為專職譯者，譯作等身，包括《大逃稅》、《世界不平等報告2018》、《這才是價值投資》等，曾獲中國時報、聯合報年度十大好書獎及其他獎項。

¿Qué determina que un país sea rico o pobre? ¿Cómo se explica que, en condiciones similares, en algunos países haya hambrunas y en otros no? ¿Qué papel tiene la política en estas cuestiones? Que algunas naciones sean más prósperas que otras, ¿se debe a cuestiones culturales?, ¿a los efectos de la climatología?, ¿a su ubicación geográfica? No, en absoluto. Ninguna cuestión relativa a la prosperidad de un país está relacionada con estos factores, sino que proviene de otro mucho más tangible: la política económica que dictaminan sus dirigentes. Son los líderes de cada país, afirman los reconocidos profesores Daron Acemoglu y James A. Robinson en este libro, quienes determinan con sus políticas la prosperidad de su territorio, y así ha ocurrido en todos los períodos de la historia, como demuestran en este apasionante estudio.

La libertad no es el orden natural de la humanidad. En la mayoría de lugares y de épocas, los fuertes han dominado a los débiles y la libertad ha sido aplastada por la fuerza o por las costumbres y las normas. A menudo los Estados no han tenido la suficiente capacidad para proteger a los individuos o, por el contrario, han sido tan fuertes que la gente no ha podido defenderse de su despotismo. La libertad sólo surge cuando se logra un equilibrio delicado y frágil entre el Estado y la sociedad. El pasillo que lleva a la libertad es estrecho y sólo puede recorrerse si se produce una lucha constante entre el Estado y la sociedad. Pero, ¿en qué consiste esa lucha? En un recorrido fascinante que nos lleva del mundo árabe en tiempos de Mahoma a las ciudades-Estado de la Italia medieval, de la Latinoamérica de las dictaduras a la Suecia que inventó la socialdemocracia, de la caótica República de Weimar a la China imperial, El pasillo estrecho nos introduce en el que tal vez sea el proceso más fascinante de la historia: el de la obtención de la libertad. Una libertad que solo puede existir cuando la sociedad cuestiona el poder del Estado y de las élites, pero también cuando, al mismo tiempo, existe un Estado robusto capaz de defender nuestros derechos cuando estos se ven amenazados.

La libertad no es el orden natural de la humanidad. En la mayoría de lugares y de épocas, los fuertes han dominado a los débiles y la libertad ha sido aplastada por la fuerza o por las costumbres y las normas. A menudo los Estados no han tenido la suficiente capacidad para proteger a los individuos o, por el contrario, han sido tan fuertes que la gente no ha podido defenderse de su despotismo. La libertad sólo surge cuando se logra un equilibrio delicado y frágil entre el Estado y la sociedad. El pasillo que lleva a la libertad es estrecho y sólo puede recorrerse si se produce una lucha constante entre el Estado y la sociedad. Pero, ¿en qué consiste esa lucha? En un recorrido fascinante que nos lleva del mundo árabe en tiempos de Mahoma a las ciudades-Estado de la Italia medieval, de la Latinoamérica de las dictaduras a la Suecia que inventó la socialdemocracia, de la caótica República de Weimar a la China imperial, El pasillo estrecho nos introduce en el que tal vez sea el proceso más fascinante de la historia: el de la obtención de la libertad. Una libertad que solo puede existir cuando la sociedad cuestiona el poder del Estado y de las élites, pero también cuando, al mismo tiempo, existe un Estado robusto capaz de defender nuestros derechos cuando estos se ven amenazados.

La libertad no es el orden natural de la humanidad. En la mayoría de lugares y de épocas, los fuertes han dominado a los débiles y la libertad ha sido aplastada por la fuerza o por las costumbres y las normas. A menudo los Estados no han tenido la suficiente capacidad para proteger a los individuos o, por el contrario, han sido tan fuertes que la gente no ha podido defenderse de su despotismo. La libertad sólo surge cuando se logra un equilibrio delicado y frágil entre el Estado y la sociedad. El pasillo que lleva a la libertad es estrecho y sólo puede recorrerse si se produce una lucha constante entre el Estado y la sociedad. Pero, ¿en qué consiste esa lucha? En un recorrido fascinante que nos lleva del mundo árabe en tiempos de Mahoma a las ciudades-Estado de la Italia medieval, de la Latinoamérica de las dictaduras a la Suecia que inventó la socialdemocracia, de la caótica República de Weimar a la China imperial, El pasillo estrecho nos introduce en el que tal vez sea el proceso más fascinante de la historia: el de la obtención de la libertad. Una libertad que solo puede existir cuando la sociedad cuestiona el poder del Estado y de las élites, pero también cuando, al mismo tiempo, existe un Estado robusto capaz de defender nuestros derechos cuando estos se ven amenazados. ¿Por qué algunas sociedades han conquistado la libertad y otras se ven sometidas a tiranías o regímenes incompetentes?

"«Chi si allontana dal gruppo è preda del falco» recita un proverbio del popolo ashanti: il mondo è crudele e i forti hanno sempre oppresso i deboli con la violenza. In assenza di un''autorità centrale l''unica protezione è rifugiarsi in una gabbia – spesso opprimente – di norme, tradizioni e alleanze tra clan. Viceversa, uno Stato forte può proteggere gli individui, ma rischia di mutarsi in un mostro, in una dittatura oppressiva. Per gran parte della storia umana, in ogni luogo e tempo, la libertà non è stata qualcosa di scontato e naturale, ma una conquista sofferta ottenuta solo imboccando una vera e propria strettoia. Questo corridoio virtuoso esiste quando i poteri dello Stato e della società sono in equilibrio: quando le istituzioni sono forti, in grado di fornire servizi e far rispettare le leggi; e quando, al tempo stesso, i cittadini hanno la capacità di tenere sotto controllo e chiamare in causa le autorità. La strettoia analizza il modo in cui le nazioni sono riuscite a bilanciare queste due forze in equilibrio precario. Ripercorre la via attraverso cui alcune sono entrate nel corridoio della libertà e altre ne sono rimaste fuori o ne sono dolorosamente uscite. Esplora la storia della democrazia in Grecia, della nascita degli Stati Uniti e di quella delle nazioni create da Maometto e Shaka a partire da terre e popoli divisi. Traccia le origini di un''Europa dai molteplici centri di potere e di una Cina dominata da un''autorità centrale, con i loro percorsi drammaticamente diversi. Indaga le radici del fallimento di molte rivoluzioni nel Medio Oriente e delle speranze per il futuro dell''Africa. Dopo il best seller Perché le nazioni falliscono, Acemoglu e Robinson aggiungono un nuovo tassello fondamentale al loro grande mosaico che ritrae la storia delle società umane. E ci ricordano, oggi più che mai, che la libertà non è dovuta, ma è una vittoria che dipende da un fragile equilibrio di forze, in bilico tra il caos e l''oppressione."

Von den Wirtschaftsnobelpreisträgern 2024 Wie viel Staat muss sein? Nach dem internationalen Bestseller »Warum Nationen scheitern?« widmen sich Starökonom Daron Acemoglu und Harvard-Politologe James A. Robinson in ihrem neuen Buch dieser fundamentalen Frage. Auseinandersetzungen zwischen rivalisierenden Milizen in Libyen, Einschränkung der Presse- und Demonstrationsfreiheit in der Türkei, Umerziehungslager in Nordkorea. Gegenwärtig erleben wir viele Staaten als problematisch: sie sind entweder gescheitert, überreguliert oder despotisch. Aber wie viel Staat ist denn eigentlich notwendig? Die Autoren geben hierauf eine überraschende und provokante Antwort. Anhand zahlreicher historischer und aktueller Beispiele – vom antiken Griechenland über Deutschland im Nationalsozialismus bis zum heutigen China – zeigen sie: Wohlstand, Sicherheit und Freiheit sind in hohem Maße von dem richtigen Rahmen abhängig, in dem der ewige Kampf um Macht zwischen Staat und Gesellschaft ausgetragen wird. Eine überzeugende Analyse, die demonstriert: Ein starker Staat und eine starke Gesellschaft sind kein Widerspruch, sondern bedingen sich gegenseitig.

Sử dụng lịch sử Đông-Tây kim-cổ đã diễn ra trên tất cả các châu lục của trái đất này, hai tác giả lập luận rằng những quốc gia thất bại là những đất nước bị cai trị bởi một nhóm quyền thế tập trung, và những nhóm này đã tổ chức xã hội để phục vụ cho quyền lợi riêng của họ trong khi đại đa số quần chúng nhân dân phải trả giá. Thế lực chính trị bị tập trung trong một nhóm nhỏ, được sử dụng để tạo ra tài sản khổng lồ cho những người nắm giữ quyền lực. Trong khi đó, những nước trở nên giàu có là vì người dân nước đó lật đổ giới quyền thế, những người kiểm soát quyền lực, và tạo ra một xã hội trong đó các quyền chính trị được phân phối rộng rãi, trong đó chính phủ có trách nhiệm giải trình và phải đáp ứng trước công dân, và trong đó đại đa số quần chúng có thể tranh thủ các cơ hội kinh tế. Tóm lại, điều cuốn sách muốn nhắm đến là thể chế nào có những điều chỉnh, cải cách để dung hợp được các lợi ích kinh tế-chính trị và tạo điều kiện cho người dân làm ăn sinh sống được tốt nhất sẽ thành công. Như sách đã chỉ ra, ngay như Trung Quốc, khi họ giải quyết được phần nào đó sự dung hợp này, họ đã có sự tăng trưởng thần kỳ. Và giờ đây họ vẫn tiếp tục giải quyết bài toán thể chế dung hợp của họ.

Earth has been attacked! In the shadow of the dark forces more powerful than the planet has ever seen, the greatest superhumans have failed. Before all is lost, a new breed of heroes must unite and combat the insidious evil invading the Earth. Who can be trusted?

"Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, by special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family; Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger; Wonder Woman created by William Moulton Marston."

The classic superhero series Starman, starring a Gen-X superhero, returns in this massive omnibus hardcover edition by James Robinson (Batman: Face the Face) and Tony Harris (Ex Machina). The superheroic legacy of Starman is renewed in these stories, in which Jack Knight--antiques collector and dealer--inherits the name and powers of his father''s old Starman identity from his older brother, who has been assassinated. Reluctantly adjusting to his role, Jack reinvents the look of Starman, ditching the traditional red and green in favor of black leather and aviator goggles. But Jack has inherited more than a heroic identity from his brother...he''s also gained a foe: the beautiful but mentally unbalanced Nash, daughter of the villain known as the Mist. Jack also must come to grips with the Shade, the morally ambiguous former villain who decides to become Jack''s mentor. Collects Starman issues #0-42, Starman Annual: Framing Sequence #1, Starman Annual: The Death of Prince Gavyn #1, Starman Annual: The Witch #1, The Shade #1-4, Starman Secret Files #1 and Power of Shazam #35-36.

"After a brutal attempt on his life, the Shade leaves Opal City to learn which of the many people he has crossed are responsible. Joining forces with allies such as private detective Will von Hammer and teenaged vampire La Sangre, the Shade begins a centuries-spanning quest that takes him from Australia to Barcelona to London, facing off against lizard gods, celestial pharaohs, and even family members ..."--Page 4 of cover.

Pourquoi certains pays sont-ils riches et d’autres pauvres ? Est-ce dû à la culture, au climat, à la géographie ? Ou est-ce le résultat de l’ignorance des dirigeants politiques ? Acemoglu et Robinson montrent à l’aide de nombreux exemples que ces réponses ne tiennent pas la route. L’histoire et l’analyse économique suggèrent une explication différente : c’est la présence ou l’absence de certaines institutions politiques et économiques qui assurent ou empêchent le progrès vers la prospérité. Des institutions «extractives» – protégeant les intérêts d’une élite puissante au dépens du bien commun – aux institutions «inclusives» – qui posent des limites à influence des puissants, éliminent la discrimination et favorisent l’innovation – le passage est parsemé d’obstacles. Acemoglu et Robinson les analysent en détail, s’appuyant sur un éventail impressionnant d’exemples, tirés de l’histoire de l’Empire romain, des cités-états mayas, de la Venise médiévale, de l’Union soviétique, de l’Amérique latine, de l’Afrique et des pays occidentaux. Ils élaborent ainsi une nouvelle synthèse de l’économie politique d’une pertinence indéniable pour les grands défis politiques et économiques d’aujourd’hui.

Thomas Piketty''s (2013) book, Capital in the 21st Century, follows in the tradition of the great classical economists, like Marx and Ricardo, in formulating general laws of capitalism to diagnose and predict the dynamics of inequality. We argue that general economic laws are unhelpful as a guide to understand the past or predict the future, because they ignore the central role of political and economic institutions, as well as the endogenous evolution of technology, in shaping the distribution of resources in society. We use regression evidence to show that the main economic force emphasized in Piketty''s book, the gap between the interest rate and the growth rate, does not appear to explain historical patterns of inequality (especially, the share of income accruing to the upper tail of the distribution). We then use the histories of inequality of South Africa and Sweden to illustrate that inequality dynamics cannot be understood without embedding economic factors in the context of economic and political institutions, and also that the focus on the share of top incomes can give a misleading characterization of the true nature of inequality. Keywords: Capitalism, Inequality, Institutions. JEL Classification: P16, P48, O20.

Abstract: David Albouy expresses three main concerns about the results in Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2001) on the relationship between potential settler mortality and institutions. First, there is a general concern that there are high mortality outliers, potentially affecting this relationship, with which we agree. However, limiting the effect of outliers has no impact on our substantive results and if anything significantly strengthens them, in fact making them robust to even extreme versions of his other critiques. His second argument that all the data from Latin America and much of the data from Africa, making up almost 60% of our sample, should be dropped is arbitrary - there is a great deal of well-documented comparable information on the mortality of Europeans in those places during the relevant period. His third argument that a "campaign" dummy should be included in the first stage is at odds with the historical record and is implemented inconsistently; even modest corrections undermine his claims

This paper documents that the Rise of (Western) Europe between 1500 and 1850 is largely accounted for by the growth of European nations with access to the Atlantic, and especially by those nations that engaged in colonialism and long distance oceanic trade. Moreover, Atlantic ports grew much faster than other West European cities, including Mediterranean ports. Atlantic trade and colonialism affected Europe both directly, and indirectly by inducing institutional changes. In particular, the growth of New World, African, and Asian trade after 1500 strengthened new segments of the commercial bourgeoisie, and enabled these groups to demand, obtain, and sustain changes in institutions to protect their property rights. Furthermore, the most significant institutional changes and consequently the most substantial economic gains occurred in nations where existing institutions placed some checks on the monarchy and particularly limited its control of overseas trading activities, thus enabling new merchants in these countries to benefit from Atlantic trade. Therefore, the Rise of Europe was largely the result of capitalist development driven by the interaction of late medieval institutions and the economic opportunities offered by "Atlantic trade." Keywords: Capitalism, Economic Growth, Institutions, Political Economy, Social Conflict, Trade. JEL Classifications: O10, F10, P10, N13.

We document that rules for leadership succession in ethnic societies that antedate the modern state predict contemporary political regimes; leadership selection by election in indigenous societies is associated with contemporary representative democracy. The basic association, however, is conditioned on the relative strength of the indigenous groups within a country; stronger groups seem to have been able to shape national regime trajectories, weaker groups do not. This finding extends and qualifies a substantive qualitative literature, which has found in local democratic institutions of medieval Europe a positive impulse towards the development of representative democracy. It shows that contemporary regimes are shaped not only by colonial history and European influence; indigenous history also matters. For practitioners, our findings suggest that external reformers'' capacity for regime-building should not be exaggerated.

Though models of political economy suggest that changes in political institutions, such as democratization, should have large effects on policies and economic outcomes, the empirical literature finds ambiguous results. It is important, however, to ''unbundle'' democratic reforms into more specific changes, for instance the introduction of secrecy of balloting, and be more specific about the mechanisms linking these to economic outcomes. To this end we develop a simple model of the economic consequences of the absence of a secret ballot. While providing workers with employment, landlords can also impose some degree of political control. When voting is not secret, landlords can dictate who their workers should vote for. As votes are used by the landlords to accumulate political rents, vote control increases the demand for labor and for land. The introduction of secret ballot should lead to a fall in the price of land in those areas where patron-client relationships and vote control were the strongest. We test the predictions of the model by examining in detail the evolution of land prices in Chile around May 31st. 1958, for which we collected original data. A characteristic of rural Chile at this time was the inquilinaje system, by which a worker, the inquilino, entered into a long term, often hereditary, employment relationship with a landlord, and lived on his landlord''s estate. We show that the introduction of the secret ballot in 1958 had implications for land prices which are perfectly consistent with the predictions of our model. Political rents represented 25% of the value of the land in Chile prior to 1958.

Robert Gordon''s The Rise and Fall of American Economic Growth provides a compelling interpretation of how technical change and innovation has radically changed the living standards of the citizens of the US in the past 150 years. Lying behind these changes are the institutions which have allowed the country to harness its human potential. In this paper we conduct an empirical investigation of the impact of one key set of institutions, the capacity of the US state as proxied by the presence of post offices in a county, on innovation. We show that between 1804 and 1899, the time when the US became the world technological leader, there is a strong association between the presence and number of post offices in a county and patenting activity, and it appears that it is the opening of postal offices that leads to surges in patenting activity, not the other way around. Our evidence suggests that part of the yet untold story of US technological exceptionalism is the way in which the US created an immensely capable and effective state.

Why was the Black Death followed by the decline of serfdom in Western Europe but its'' intensification in Eastern Europe? What explains why involvement in Atlantic trade in the Early Modern period was positively correlated with economic growth in Britain but negatively correlated in Spain? Why did frontier expansion in the 19th Century Americas go along with economic growth in the United States and economic decline in Latin America? Why do natural resource booms seem to stimulate growth in some countries, but lead to a ''curse'' in others, and why does foreign aid sometimes seem to encourage, other times impede economic growth? In this paper we argue that the response of economies to shocks or innovations in economic opportunities depends on the nature of institutions. When institutions are strong, new opportunities or windfalls can have positive effects. But when institutions are weak they can have negative effects. We present a simple model to illustrate how comparative statics are conditional on the nature of institutions and show how this perspective helps to unify a large number of historical episodes and empirical studies.

In this paper we revisit the relationship between institutions, human capital and development. We argue that empirical models that treat institutions and human capital as exogenous are misspecified both because of the usual omitted variable bias problems and because of differential measurement error in these variables, and that this misspecification is at the root of the very large returns of human capital, about 4 to 5 times greater than that implied by micro (Mincerian) estimates, found in some of the previous literature. Using cross-country and cross-regional regressions, we show that when we focus on historically-determined differences in human capital and control for the effect of institutions, the impact of institutions on long-run development is robust, while the estimates of the effect of human capital are much diminished and become consistent with micro estimates. Using historical and cross-country regression evidence, we also show that there is no support for the view that differences in the human capital endowments of early European colonists have been a major factor in the subsequent institutional development of these polities. Keywords: Economic Development, Institutions, Human Capital. JEL Classification: I25, P16, O10.