Acemoglu in Esquire Magazine

|Peter Boettke|

Don't how many of you have seen this, but last year Daron Acemoglu was listed as one of the 50 brightest people in the world (2009).  He chose to focus the summary of his ideas on understanding world poverty and its eradication.

"Put simply," he says,  "Fix incentives and you will fix poverty. And if you wish to fix institutions, you have to fix governments."

Comments

[Mario Rizzo]

But are you likely to fix any of this, given political and cultural realities? And who is the "you"? The hypothetical is worth knowing but lack of knowledge may not be the problem.

[Pierre Desrochers]

Everytime I read something like this I wonder why economists like Acemoglu and Sachs never bothered to have one of their RAs photocopy a three page encyclopedia entry on the history of geographical determinism... But then again, pointing out that all the main arguments for and against it (including the importance of institutions) were elaborated upon by authors ranging from Vitrivius to Voltaire is obviously of no immediate interest...