Why Do Some Societies Prosper While Others Fail?
Commentary
Why is economic output per person seven times higher on one side of the U.S.–Mexico border than on the other? Why is per capita income in Taiwan almost three times higher than it is in China? What explains the fact that the average Canadian is 12 times richer than the average Moroccan?
We are often invited to believe that a society’s relative success has a lot to do with its geography or climate. Not so.
There are plenty of resource-rich countries in Africa, blessed in every imaginable way by geography and climate, that still produce only grinding poverty. Conversely, there are plenty of resource-poor places, such as Japan or Iceland, that prosper….