The material for this week picks up on the discussion in a couple of reviews of the recent book Why Nations Fail. See the blog that comes with the book. As one might guess from the title, this book tackles one of the core questions facing economics -- why do some countries produce so much less output per capita than others? Acemoglu and Robinson argue that much of the cross-country differences in income reflect not policy ignorance, but conscious choices by political leaders. As the reviewer's point out, this leaves open the mechanism which drives different political choices across countries. At the end of the day, does Why Nations Fail offer anything more than people get the government they deserve?
As a special bonus for fans of the Hunger Games, attached is a discussion of the economics of Panem based on the ideas in Why Nations Fail.
