2024 Nobel Laureate Explains What Makes Countries Fail Or Succeed, with James A. Robinson

On Big Brains, we get to speak to a lot of groundbreaking scholars and experts, but some conversations we walk away knowing we’ve just heard from someone who is really changing the world. We certainly felt that way years ago after talking to University of Chicago scholar James Robinson, and it turns out…the Nobel Prize committee agreed in 2024 when it awarded him a share of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Robinson was honored for the exact work that we talked to him about nearly five years ago. The author of numerous best-selling books, including Why Nations Fail (2012) and The Narrow Corridor (2019), he won the Nobel this year because his work researching what makes nations succeed and…what makes them fail. There’s no better time to refamiliarize ourselves with his important research and celebrate his Nobel win.

00:00 Introduction to Big Brains and James Robinson
01:20 The Impact of 'Guns, Germs, and Steel'
02:10 Why Nations Fail: An Overview
03:10 The Puzzle of Poor Countries
04:45 Extractive vs. Inclusive Institutions
05:13 The Nogales Experiment
07:56 Understanding Extractive Institutions
09:46 Inclusive Institutions and Innovation
12:42 The Narrow Corridor: A Follow-Up
13:33 The Concept of Liberty
15:34 Despotism vs. Anarchy: The State-Society Balance
16:26 The Narrow Corridor: Balancing State and Society
17:59 Historical Perspectives on State and Society
20:03 Path Dependence and Divergence in Societies
21:31 Modern Challenges and Historical Lessons
23:22 Global Perspectives and Policy Advice
25:22 Human Innovation and Societal Diversity
27:04 Reflections on Writing and Impact
28:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[UChicago]

00:00 Introduction to Big Brains and James Robinson
01:20 The Impact of 'Guns, Germs, and Steel'
02:10 Why Nations Fail: An Overview
03:10 The Puzzle of Poor Countries
04:45 Extractive vs. Inclusive Institutions
05:13 The Nogales Experiment
07:56 Understanding Extractive Institutions
09:46 Inclusive Institutions and Innovation
12:42 The Narrow Corridor: A Follow-Up
13:33 The Concept of Liberty
15:34 Despotism vs. Anarchy: The State-Society Balance
16:26 The Narrow Corridor: Balancing State and Society
17:59 Historical Perspectives on State and Society
20:03 Path Dependence and Divergence in Societies
21:31 Modern Challenges and Historical Lessons
23:22 Global Perspectives and Policy Advice
25:22 Human Innovation and Societal Diversity
27:04 Reflections on Writing and Impact
28:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[grimstoic]

great example of how rigorous modelling of meticulous data can still not overcome researchers' bias and programming. Nobel or not, the much decorated professor is laughably wrong - he's guided primarily by his framework's and context's leviathan, to borrow his infantile terminology.