O que é este blog?

Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida.

Mostrando postagens com marcador Why Nations Fail?. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador Why Nations Fail?. Mostrar todas as postagens

sexta-feira, 13 de abril de 2012

Historiadores econômicos vs Economistas historiadores: luta de classes? (3) - The Economist

Fim do debate, e aqui deveria ser o começo: a resenha do livro.



Creating economic wealth

The big why

Nations fail because their leaders are greedy, selfish and ignorant of history

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. By Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Crown; 529 pages; $30. Profile; £25. Buy fromAmazon.comAmazon.co.uk
THE rich world’s troubles and inequalities have been making headlines for some time now. Yet a more important story for human welfare is the persistence of yawning gaps between the world’s haves and have-nots. Adjusted for purchasing power, the average American income is 50 times that of a typical Afghan and 100 times that of a Zimbabwean. Despite two centuries of economic growth, over a billion people remain in dire poverty.
This conundrum demands ambitious answers. In the late 1990s Jared Diamond and David Landes tackled head-on the most vexing questions: why did Europe discover modern economic growth and why is its spread so limited? Now, Daron Acemoglu, an economist at MIT, and James Robinson, professor of government at Harvard, follow in their footsteps with “Why Nations Fail”. They spurn the cultural and geographic stories of their forebears in favour of an approach rooted solely in institutional economics, which studies the impact of political environments on economic outcomes. Neither culture nor geography can explain gaps between neighbouring American and Mexican cities, they argue, to say nothing of disparities between North and South Korea.
They offer instead a striking diagnosis: some governments get it wrong on purpose. Amid weak and accommodating institutions, there is little to discourage a leader from looting. Such environments channel society’s output towards a parasitic elite, discouraging investment and innovation. Extractive institutions are the historical norm. Inclusive institutions protect individual rights and encourage investment and effort. Where inclusive governments emerge, great wealth follows.
Britain, wellspring of the industrial revolution, is the chief proof of this theory. Small medieval differences in the absolutism of English and Spanish monarchs were amplified by historical chance. When European exploration began, Britain’s more constrained crown left trade in the hands of privateers, whereas Spain favoured state control of ocean commerce. The New World’s riches solidified Spanish tyranny but nurtured a merchant elite in Britain. Its members helped to tilt the scales against monarchy in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and counterbalanced the landed aristocracy, securing pluralism and sowing the seeds of economic growth. Within a system robust enough to tolerate creative destruction, British ingenuity (not so different from French or Chinese inventiveness) was free to flourish.
This fortunate accident was not easily replicated. In Central and South America European explorers found dense populations ripe for plundering. They built suitably exploitative states. Britain’s North American colonies, by contrast, made poor ground for extractive institutions; indigenous populations were too dispersed to enslave. Colonial governors used market incentives to motivate early settlers in Virginia and Massachusetts. Political reforms made the grant of economic rights credible. Where pluralism took root, American industry and wealth bloomed. Where it lapsed, in southern slaveholding colonies, a long period of economic backwardness resulted. A century after the American civil war the segregated South remained poor.
Extractive rules are self-reinforcing. In the Spanish New World, plunder further empowered the elite. Revolution and independence rarely provide escape from this tyranny. New leadership is tempted to retain the benefits of the old system. Inclusive economies, by contrast, encourage innovation and new blood. This destabilises existing industries, keeping economic and political power dispersed.
Failure is the rule. Here, Venice provides a cautionary tale. Upward mobility drove the city-state’s wealth and power. Its innovative commenda, a partnership in which capital-poor sailors and rich Venetians shared the profits from voyages, allowed those of modest background to rise through the ranks. This fluidity threatened established wealth, however. From the late 13th century the ducal council began restricting political and economic rights, banning the commenda and nationalising trade. By 1500, with a stagnant economy and falling population, Venice’s descent from great power was well under way.
Moves towards greater inclusivity are disappointingly rare. The French revolution provides an example, but also demonstrates the authors’ unfortunate habit of ignoring historical detail. Revolution put paid to absolutism and led, after a long and messy struggle, to the creation of an enduring republic. Institutions, in the form of a fledgling merchant class, provided momentum for reform, making the difference between the successful French revolution and failed uprisings elsewhere. But the authors give short shrift to the presence and meaning of Enlightenment ideals. It is difficult to believe this did not matter for the French transition, yet the intellectual climate is left out of the story. History is contingent, the authors apologise, but history is what they hope to explain.
The story of Botswana is also unsatisfying. There, a co-operative effort by tribal leaders secured the protection of the British government against the marauding imperialism of Cecil Rhodes. Despite its considerable diamond wealth, which might have spawned a corrupt and abusive elite, Botswana became a rare success in Africa, assisted by the benevolence of its leaders and by having a tiny population. At times the authors come dangerously close to attributing success to successfulness.
The intuition behind the theory is nonetheless compelling, which makes the scarcity of policy prescriptions frustrating. The book is sceptical of the Chinese model. China’s growth may be rooted in the removal of highly oppressive Maoist institutions, but its communist government remains fundamentally extractive. It may engineer growth by mobilising people and resources from low-productivity activities, like subsistence agriculture, toward industry. But without political reform and the possibility of creative destruction, growth will grind to a halt.
Rich countries determined to nudge along the process of institutional development should recognise their limitations, the authors reckon. The point is well taken. It is hard to ignore the role of European expansion in the creation of the underdeveloped world’s extractive institutions which, in self-perpetuating fashion, continue to constrain reform and development. Evidence nonetheless hints that contagious ideals, propitious leadership and external pressure matter. The promise of European Union membership encouraged institutional reform in central and eastern Europe. America eventually eradicated extractive southern institutions and placed the South on a path toward economic convergence. There is no quick fix for institutional weakness, only the possibility that steady encouragement and chance will bring about progress.

Historiadores econômicos vs Economistas historiadores: luta de classes? (2) - The Economist

WSegunda parte de um debate: 



Buttonwood

The question of extractive elites

Bankers and the public sector may both be enemies of growth

THE developed world has a growth problem. Of 34 advanced economies, 28 had lower GDP per head in 2011 than they did in 2007. Forecasts for growth in the current year are anaemic. This sluggishness is generally perceived to be a hangover from the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. But might the problem be structural rather than cyclical?
In their new book, “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty”, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, a pair of economists, suggest that many countries are bedevilled by economic institutions that “are structured to extract resources from the many by the few and that fail to protect property rights or provide incentives for economic activity.” In contrast, “inclusive” economies distribute power more widely, establish law and order, and have secure property rights and free-market systems.
In an extractive economy, such as the Belgian Congo and its successor state, Zaire, a narrow elite seizes power and uses its control of resources to prevent social change. Such economies can achieve growth for a while, particularly when (as with the Soviet Union in the mid-20th century and, the authors argue, China today) resources are being transferred from the unproductive agricultural sector into manufacturing. But they run out of steam eventually.
The authors place the developed world in the “inclusive” category since they have, by definition, achieved economic success. But their description of extractive economies should ring one or two alarm bells in the minds of Western readers. “Because elites dominating extractive institutions fear creative destruction”, the authors write, “they will resist it, and any growth that germinates under extractive institutions will be ultimately short-lived.”
There are two potential candidates for extractive elites in Western economies. The first is the banking sector. The wealth of the financial industry gives it enormous lobbying power, including as contributors to American presidential campaigns or to Britain’s ruling parties. By making themselves “too big to fail”, banks ensured that they had to be rescued in 2008.
Much of current economic policy seems to be driven by the need to prop up banks, whether it is record-low interest rates across the developed world or the recent provision of virtually unlimited liquidity by the once-staid European Central Bank. The long-term effects of these policies, which may be hard to reverse, are difficult to assess.
It is tougher to argue that the financial sector has inhibited growth in other areas of the economy. Indeed, both banks and venture-capital groups play a vital role in supporting new companies. Nevertheless, it is possible that the extremely high rewards in the financial industry might have diverted talented people away from other activities that could have helped rich economies to grow more sustainably. Furthermore, those high rewards could derive from “rent-seeking” by the financial sector, in the form of fees, charges and spreads, that have acted as a tax on the rest of the economy.
A second candidate for the extractive-elite category is the public sector. In some countries, such as Greece, there has been a clear policy of “clientelism” in which political parties have rewarded their supporters with jobs and benefits that have been funded by the general taxpayer. In the Anglo-Saxon world, public-sector employees now have more generous pension rights than the majority of private-sector workers.
An obvious objection to this line of reasoning is that there are too many public-sector employees for them to be regarded as an elite. Indeed, if you include the many recipients of social benefits, those dependent on the public purse comprise a majority of most rich-country populations. Such social policies are part of the inclusive model that Mr Acemoglu and Mr Robinson favour.
But it does seem likely that a high level of public-sector employment reduces the extent to which creative destruction occurs and new industries develop. Workers may prefer the security of government jobs to the riskiness of joining new businesses. As European governments are discovering, public-sector unions are often the most vocal in opposing the kind of labour-market reforms needed to reduce structural unemployment.
Just as a ship’s hull acquires barnacles, a government naturally attracts all kinds of supplicants and subsidy-seekers. If such behaviour is unchecked, then eventually the system may grind to a halt.


(segue o debate)

Historiadores econômicos vs Economistas historiadores: luta de classes? (1) - The Economist

Apenas postando, para acompanhar o debate (nos dois posts seguintes): 

Duelling academics

Historians versus economists

The Economist, Apr 13th 2012, 13:46 by Buttonwood
THIS week's column focuses on an idea from "Why Nations Fail", a book by two economists, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, about the importance of political institutions to economic growth. The Economist review is here. Dominic Sandbrook, a popular historian of modern Britain, of the Sunday Times was very hostile to the book (the article is behind a paywall). He wrote that
the truth is that books such as these, which purport to explain the whole of human history by a tidy formula, are simply highbrow equivalents of cultish conspiracy theories.
concluding that
Expect to see it soon in a business-class cabin near you. But don't mistake it for a serious history book.
Mr Sandbrook also attacks Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel", Ian Morris's "Why the West Rules - For Now" and Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature" for similar faults. The most revealing jibe is that
Such books purport to be works of history, yet they are rarely written by historians
It's not hard to sense a bit of territorial defensiveness here. Historians have always been a bit sniffy when their colleagues become too popular - the great AJP Taylor was looked down upon for being on TV too much, although his books on 20th century history are wonderfully readable (if not always reliable).
Of course, economists feel much the same way about historians invading their patch, as the occasional spats between Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson have shown. Krugman has remarked that Ferguson "hasn't bothered to understand the basics" of economics. Of course, many economists don't agree with Professor Krugman, particularly on the issue of stimulus that he was debating with Professor Ferguson. Social sciences are riven with internecine disputes. Historians themselves often disagree violently; in the days of my degree, the debate concerned whether the English bourgeoisie were rising or falling in the 17th century. Meanwhile economists themselves are regularly upbraided for "physics envy", filling their articles with complex equations that deter the non-expert reader. When it comes to issues such as quantitative easing, they stick to their theories and formulae and are pretty dismissive of historical tales of John Law or the currency debasements of Roman emperors.
Having read (and greatly enjoyed) all the books slagged off by Mr Sandbrook, this blogger feels his criticism is over the top. Yes, the Acemoglu/Robinson book is overly reductive, seeing everything through the prism of economics and missing out huge issues like religion and intellectual thought. But that's not really the point of such books, which are really designed to make the reader think in a different way. Diamond highlights the importance of geography (plants, livestock and pests), Pinker on the remarkable decline in general levels of violence and Morris on the fluctuating fortunes of west and east. Each naturally highlights those parts of history that fit into their story. A completely well-balanced history of the world would take dozens of volumes (Robert Caro has spent three tomes just getting LBJ to be vice-president) and would be too much for readers to tackle.
There is no reason why outsiders cannot write about history; indeed, they seem likely to add fresh perspectives, just as it is also valid for Niall Ferguson (whose best works have been on financial history, and who gives a plug for the Acemoglu/Robinson book) to comment on economics. Relax, guys; there is always more to learn.
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