James A. Robinson is an Anglo-American economist and political scientist. He is currently a professor at the University of Chicago and is known for his research on institutions, economic development, and comparative politics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2024, along with Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson.<\/p>\n
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What lies at the root of prosperity? Professor Robinson outlines the drivers of growth, focusing on the role of political and economic institutions\u2014key levers for development that shape innovation, investment, and social cohesion. Reflecting on two decades of research, he explores both virtuous and less successful cases, as well as the question of whether institutions can be \u201cexported.\u201d He also turns his gaze to Africa, in light of the demographic crisis and migration patterns. A list of challenges that brings the main ingredients of growth back to the fore\u2014and a lens through which to view these phenomena with broad perspective.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Professor Robinson, what led you to dedicate your research to the formation of institutions and their impact on economic prosperity? Was there a specific event that sparked this interest?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve always been interested in questions related to economic development. My father worked in Africa all his life, and when I was a boy, I lived abroad. These topics were always present at home. When I became an economist, I set out to study development in particular. At the time, no one approached it quantitatively. Daron (Acemoglu) and I were both convinced that was the right path. Most of the economics in that field then consisted of simple policy assessments, focusing mainly on rich, already-developed countries. No one was really looking at poor countries\u2014precisely the ones we cared about. We followed this institutional vision simply by thinking about the world, reading, and convincing ourselves it was the right story.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In your book Why Nations Fail<\/em>, you outline the main reasons behind a nation’s prosperity. What are they?<\/strong><\/p>\n The book was born out of our desire to communicate to a broader audience what we thought we had learned from our studies. That\u2019s how we developed the dichotomy between inclusive and extractive institutions, using a series of examples\u2014like the city of Nogales, where only a fence separates the United States from Mexico, or North and South Korea. In both cases, these are territories that do not differ in geography, climate, or culture, yet show substantial differences in income and quality of life. The idea is that inclusive economic institutions create incentives and opportunities throughout society, generating prosperity and fostering innovation, investment, and entrepreneurship. Extractive institutions, by contrast, are the opposite: they create narrowly concentrated incentives or opportunities used for rent-seeking. Places that may seem very different in terms of institutional detail\u2014like North Korea, Zimbabwe, or Uzbekistan\u2014are all marked by extractive institutions, which explain their poverty.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not everyone agrees with your institutional view. Jared Diamond, for instance, in Guns, Germs, and Steel<\/em>, argues that geography and environment are the main causes of economic development.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019d love to write a book as well-crafted as Guns, Germs, and Steel<\/em>, but I think it\u2019s based on a completely flawed argument. Diamond tells a story of humans succumbing to broad environmental constraints, but I believe the opposite is true\u2014that humans overcome those constraints. His theory doesn\u2019t offer satisfying answers to the major economic transformation that occurred in the modern world. Take the Americas in 1530: why was it the Spaniards who captured Atahualpa, and not the other way around? When the conquistadors arrived, the South Americans had access to everything Diamond talks about\u2014firearms, iron tools, new diseases\u2014and, at the time, the standard of living gap between the two civilizations was minimal. Only later did the differences widen. Diamond can\u2019t explain this divergence\u2014but the institutional differences can.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Others argue that human capital and education are the key factors for economic growth. What\u2019s your view?<\/strong><\/p>\n Human capital is undoubtedly crucial, but ultimately, it too is the result of processes initiated by institutions. Many studies explain development by emphasizing investment in education, financial capital, and human capital. They\u2019re certainly important, but they all depend on institutions. If you ignore that, you inevitably underestimate the critical role institutions play.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The case of Afghanistan shows the limits of externally imposed institutions. Do you think such plans can succeed elsewhere? Or must good institutions develop organically within a society?<\/strong><\/p>\n I believe institutional transitions must happen organically, as internal changes arising from within a society. There are very few examples of institutions successfully imposed from the outside, so it\u2019s hard to make a complete assessment. Outside support isn\u2019t necessarily ineffective, but we need to reflect on what kind of help to offer. Everyone needs support, aid, and assistance\u2014but the solution is to teach, to spread knowledge and skills\u2014not to hand out money or invade those countries.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And yet China has managed to achieve rapid economic growth under what some would call extractive political institutions. How do you explain this?<\/strong><\/p>\n China is at the forefront of technology today\u2014but so was the Soviet Union in missile and weapons technology during the Cold War. They put the first man in space, they had brilliant scientists and physicists. But extractive institutions prevented them from sustaining growth. I think China is similar to the USSR in this respect. The logic we developed in Why Nations Fail<\/em> still holds\u2014and when Beijing collapses, everyone will say it was obvious that such institutions couldn\u2019t sustain growth long-term. That said, Chinese culture is very different from Western culture, so a different model might work for them. But so far, the evidence doesn\u2019t support that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, are you optimistic about the future of democracy?<\/strong><\/p>\n There are different ways to look at it. There’s a book by political scientist Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave<\/em>, that discusses the so-called \u201cwaves of democracy.\u201d Huntington argues that democracy comes in waves. The first one hit Western Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Each wave is followed by a \u201creverse wave,\u201d during which democracy weakens\u2014as happened in the 1920s and 30s, when it disappeared across much of Europe. The second wave swept through Latin America, and that too was followed by a reverse wave. Since 1990, we\u2019ve witnessed a third wave, with democratization in Latin America, the disappearance of military regimes throughout Africa, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. What we\u2019re seeing now might well be the reversal of that third wave\u2014thirty-five years later.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What are the mechanisms behind this reversal wave, in your view?<\/strong><\/p>\n When new democracies emerge\u2014especially after dictatorship\u2014they often promise everything. And inevitably, those promises fall short. Post-dictatorship systems tend to promise more than they can deliver. That\u2019s exactly what seems to be happening in the United States: people are disillusioned with democracy, the average American\u2019s standard of living has stagnated for fifty years, there\u2019s a massive decline in trust in institutions, and many feel democracy is somehow rigged. Donald Trump\u2019s campaign drew largely from this angry, underrepresented electorate. I believe the consequences will inevitably be negative\u2014just like with previous reversal waves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Trump administration repeatedly attacked American institutions. Do you think the U.S. can maintain its central global role, or are we moving toward a multipolar world?<\/strong><\/p>\n The U.S. has only recently assumed a central global role\u2014it wasn\u2019t always that way. At the famous Yalta Conference, for instance, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin essentially divided the world: there were the United States, the British Empire, and the Russian Empire. It was a multipolar balance\u2014and that wasn\u2019t so long ago, only about eighty years. So, I don\u2019t think a multipolar world is a new idea. To stay central, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars\u2014but President Trump simply doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s worth it. That disillusionment also stems from what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the costs\u2014also in human lives\u2014were enormous.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Much of your research focuses on Africa. If we look at post-colonial African states that inherited what you call extractive institutions, what have the consequences been for their current institutions?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think the biggest problem in post-colonial Africa is the concept of the nation-state itself. In villages in Nigeria or Sierra Leone, everything works pretty well. There\u2019s a legitimate political system, it\u2019s fairly clear who owns what, and people cooperate and share resources. The local political system works. But the nation-state is an alien construct dating back to colonial times. Take Nigeria: there are hundreds\u2014maybe thousands\u2014of social contracts, and it\u2019s extremely difficult to merge them into one central system that functions. To me, that\u2019s the core issue: the ethics and norms practiced locally have never been projected onto the national state.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yet there are African states that have managed to build a national identity.<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course\u2014there are success stories too. Botswana, for example, managed to reinvent traditional institutions and make them work in a post-colonial state context. But Botswana had nine large local administrations with similar histories and institutional structures, making it much more uniform than many other African countries. In places like Nigeria, there\u2019s far less uniformity in terms of language and existing structures, and naturally, that makes the nation-state paradigm much harder to implement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Looking ahead, do you see any African state poised to become a major global economic force?<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s a great question. When people ask me if there\u2019s a country that could grow its economy by 10% per year over the next fifty years, I always say Nigeria. It has so much energy and talent, but it\u2019s stuck in a vicious cycle of corruption and unproductive activity. But then again, South Korea in the 1950s was in the same condition. In 1961, President Park rewrote the rules to channel energy in a more productive direction. Or look at China\u2019s takeoff\u2014millions of people worked in unproductive state enterprises until Deng Xiaoping steered them toward something more productive. As far as we know, a lot of growth can happen even in a pretty barren institutional landscape. Institutions become more important later, when it\u2019s time to sustain growth. The point is, you don\u2019t have to solve every institutional problem at the outset. But today in Nigeria, the political class is just stealing money\u2014and there\u2019s no incentive to improve the system. There\u2019s no central vision, and the system discourages its emergence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meanwhile, the West is facing a demographic crisis. How will this affect Western institutions? And what does the future hold?<\/strong><\/p>\n By 2030, 42% of all young people in the world will be African. So not only is Africa home to a massive population\u2014it\u2019s also a very young one. And I think Africans are the ideal workforce to tackle the problems we\u2019re facing. With artificial intelligence, many jobs will shrink, and the ones that remain will be labor-intensive\u2014like nursing. In England, for instance, most nurses already come from Ghana or Nigeria. That\u2019s because African society is centered on social networks, community, and family\u2014and that culture fits perfectly with the kind of jobs that will survive AI.<\/p>\n Of course, making this mutual-need system work will require major political effort. I think especially of Britain, where a divisive nationalist identity\u2014exemplified by Brexit\u2014is still dominant. And yet, the pension system is financially unsustainable, debt is rising, and there\u2019s a looming demographic crisis. When things get worse, that\u2019s when we\u2019ll need Africans. And it will be a very positive process for Africa too\u2014because the African diaspora is different from others. An Englishman who leaves England rarely returns. But an African remains deeply tied to their community and continues to support it from afar, sending back part of their earnings. That makes Africa\u2019s future development very interesting.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What lessons can we draw for migration policy\u2014especially in Europe?<\/strong><\/p>\n Human mobility is clearly a challenge for institutions in Europe and beyond. We created this idea of the nation-state, which may have worked in the 19th century, but no longer fits today. Europe\u2019s population is shrinking\u2014and when Nigeria reaches 500 million people, they won\u2019t just stay put. It\u2019s a topic no one wants to face. We\u2019re building walls, hoping the problem will disappear\u2014but it won\u2019t.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Guido Magnani is a student of Economics and Social Sciences at Bocconi University and a member of the student association Economic Society for Bocconi Students.<\/em><\/p>\n Ginevra Migone is a student of Economics and Finance at Bocconi University and a member of the same student association.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" James A. Robinson is an Anglo-American economist and political scientist. 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