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MAKING POOR NATIONS RICH
Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development
Edited by
Benjamin Powell
Foreword by
Deepak K. Lal
Why do some nations become rich while others remain poor? Traditional economic theory has done little to answer this question. Now, through case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, Making Poor Nations Rich argues for examining the critical role entrepreneurs, private property rights, and free trade and other economic freedoms play in economic development.
This volume begins by explaining how entrepreneurs create economic growth and why some institutional environments encourage more productive entrepreneurship than others. The book then addresses countries and regions that have failed to develop because of barriers to entrepreneurship. Finally, the authors turn to countries that have developed by reforms that protect private property and grant greater levels of economic freedom.
Making Poor Nations Rich demonstrates that pro-market reforms are essential to promoting the productive entrepreneurship that leads to economic growth, and where this institutional environment is lacking, sustained economic development will remain elusive.
Detailed Summary |
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Table of Contents 1. Introduction by Ben Powell
PART I: Institutions and Entrepreneurship
2. Big Bills Left on the Sidewalk: Why Some Nations Are Rich, and Others Poor
Mancur Olson Jr.
3. Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth
Randall G. Holcombe
4. Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive
William J. Baumol
5. Economic Freedom and Property Right: The Institutional Environment of Productive Entrepreneurship
Robert Lawson
PART II: Failures in Entrepreneurial Development
6. The African Development Conundrum
George Ayittey
7. The Case of Latin America
Alvaro Vargas Llosa
8. Entrepreneurship or Entremanureship? Digging Through Romania’s Institutional Environment for Transitional Lessons
Peter J. Boettke, Christopher J. Coyne, Peter T. Leeson
9. Sweden’s Slowdown: The Impact of Interventionism on Entrepreneurship
Dan Johansson
PART III: Reform and Success in Entrepreneurial Development
10.China’s March Toward the Market
James A. Dorn
11. India: The Elephant in the Age of Liberation
Parth J. Shah, Renuka Sane
12. Economic Freedom and Growth: The Case of the Celtic Tiger
Benjamin Powell
13. Why Have Kiwis Not Become Tigers? Reforms, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development in New Zealand.
Frederic Sautet
14. Look, Botswana: No Hands! Why Botswana’s Government Should Let the Economy Steer Itself
Scott A. Beaulier
Praise for Making Poor Nations Rich “For the sake of many millions of people trapped in poverty, I wish politicians of all ideological persuasions would pay careful attention to the arguments expounded by this remarkable book.”
—Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico; Director, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
“The lessons of Making Poor Nations Rich are clear. Citizens, reformers, policymakers, new-nation builders, and those that direct stalled societies, will find much to reflect upon in this well-structured, thoughtful, and hard-hitting book.”
—Colin M. MacLachlan, John Christie Barr Distinguished Professor of History, Tulane University
“Making Poor Nations Rich gives readers a deeper understanding of the true forces of economic growth, and how economic policies and institutions can work to inhibit them or allow them to flourish.”
—Arnold C. Harberger, Distinguished Professor of Economics, UCLA
“It is often taken for granted that where opportunities exist to improve people’s lives, they will be pursued. The splendid book Making Poor Nations Rich develops this insight from various angles, and through an elegant mix of theoretical observation and case studies.”
—Timur Kuran, Professor of Political Science and Gorter Family Professor in Islam and the Social Sciences, Duke University
“Making Poor Nations Rich is the most wide-ranging, substantive anthology available on the linkage between entrepreneurs and development. This first-rate book will be welcomed by both academics and practitioners who are grappling with the mysteries of economic development.”
—Steve H. Hanke, Professor of Applied Economics, Johns Hopkins University
“The essays Professor Powell assembles [in Making Poor Nations Rich] lay theoretical and empirical foundations for the role of entrepreneurship in economic development and then illustrates some of the successes and failures that have taken place around the world. The book is clearly an exercise in what has been termed “new institutional social science.” There is much to be gleaned from the case-study approach and from ethnographic studies on field research and interviews. . . . These studies are more than robustness checks: One the hand, they confirm the points made by broader empirical studies; on the other hand, they elucidate the mechanisms that generate regularities identified in cross-country empirical studies. Where these approaches paint with very broad brushes, studies like those in the present volume offer us finely detailed portraits of the processes of economic change. . . . This book is an important contribution that should be widely read by scholars interested in economic development at all levels. If Bryan Caplan is right and systematically biased voter beliefs do matter, this volume provides a welcome corrective. I especially hope it finds its way into the hands of policy makers who take to heart the lessons that the book has to teach.”
—Review of Austrian Economics
“This recently published book [Making Poor Nations Rich] is a must fit in any economist’s library, as well as that of any layman interested in the ongoing problem of poverty. . . . Benjamin Powell’s compendium is a composite of thirteen highly convincing articles that demonstrate, from a free market point of view, that the unique royal path to development consists in freedom. . . . Every economist worth his salt must consider as required reading the successes and dismal failures of development presented by Powell. It is an indispensable task for the modern economics profession to call a halt to the conventional nondescript claptrap that has served as development theory over so many decades and to provide the profession with tangible remedies, especially for the backsliding economies—one sixth of humanity.”
—Journal of Markets and Morality
“Making Poor Nations Rich addresses an issue that has confronted economists at least since Adam Smith. What makes countries poor or rich? . . . The essays in Making Poor Nations Rich suggest that the success of nations in achieving growth depends on political institutions and, in particular, on whether those institutions encourage entrepreneurship. . . . The essays are easily accessible to noneconomists and make interesting reading.”
—The Federal Lawyer About the Editor Benjamin Powell is Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of Economics at Suffolk University. Dr. Powell received his Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University and his Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and Economics from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He has been assistant professor of economics at San Jose State University, a fellow with the Mercatus Center’s Global Prosperity Initiative, and a visiting research fellow with the American Institute for Economic Research.
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