Which Institutions Are Really Needed to Reach Wealth? A Clarification of Acemoglu and Robinson’s Concept

The aim of the paper is to provide hints on how to read Acemoglu and Robinson’s institutional hypothesis. First, we recall the meaning of their inclusive and extractive institutions. Then, we classify and compare the concept to certain approaches present in development economics. Additionally, we outline the perspective of historical research of institutions, raising the approach of historical natural experiments and comparative methods. We claim in the paper that to understand Acemoglu and Robinson’s institutional hypothesis and their strong rejection of other hypotheses on economic development one has to turn back to the basic notion of institutions. We argue that the authors of Why Nations Fail are focused on considering formal institutions only, which impoverishes the research perspective presented in that book.