Why Nations Fail

In a previous post, I provided a link to an interview with Daron Acemoglu in which he explains various theories about the causes of income inequality.  The MIT economics professor and his Harvard collaborator James A. Robinson have written a new, popularly-targeted book on the fate of nations, Why Nations Fail:  The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.  The book addresses a similar subject although in sweeping historical and global perspective  (why do some nations become richer and others do not?) , and the authors advance one model for understanding it (because some governments develop inclusive political and economic institutions rather than extractive ones).  William Easterly of the New York University reviews it here in the March 24 edition of The Wall Street Journal.