Why Why Nations Fail changed my mind

Prior to reading

• Lazy Jared Diamond understanding of geographic determinism.
• Solow model = capital capital capital
• General ignorance due to Eurocentrism

The book

• Institutions matter
• Inclusive vs. extractive
• Political institutions: shared participation in political processes, legitimacy, etc. protection of minority constituencies.
• Economic institutions: equal application of just laws, shared participation in markets, property rights, etc.
• Exhaustive survey of different case studies

After reading

• Institutions matter
• Enough counterexamples exist to dispel alternative hypotheses, including the crass racial difference ones advocated by many.
• Which American institutions are inclusive? Which are extractive?