This week economists have been congratulating themselves on following Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson into institutions. They are, in effect, proud to have discovered the rest of the social sciences.

Acemoglu and Robinson read a book called American Slavery, American Freedom, used the bits about American freedom and tossed the bits about American slavery.

If you’re going to study institutions, you have to be curious about all of them.

This year the Riksbank awarded its prize to a treatment of early modern institutions so selective it functions as a bedtime story for capitalists. The good institutions produced prosperity. The bad ones produced misery.

https://www.ft.com/content/1e2584d6-65ef-46de-bfb2-28811be65600