A Nobel, but AJR’s model fails.

• Acemoğlu’s work, with over 2,47,538 citations, has significantly reshaped understanding of economic success drivers.
• Their Eurocentric framework oversimplifies complex historical and institutional dynamics.
• AJR’s most cited paper, “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation,” argues that economic fortunes can be traced to the types of institutions established in the colonial era.
• AJR’s framework fails to account for diverse pathways to growth seen in different parts of the world.
• Scholar Yuen Yuen Ang introduces the concept of “directed improvisation”, a decentralized mechanism of institutional adaptation driven by iterative experimentation at subnational levels.
• Ang challenges AJR’s causal sequencing, demonstrating that China’s rapid growth under extractive conditions precedes institutional inclusivity.
• AJR’s framework cannot adequately explain western development itself, as inclusion in these institutions was only partial.
• AJR’s framework is simplistic and ahistorical, overlooking the role of state intervention and industrial policies in the development of rich countries.
• AJR’s institutional framework oversimplifies the complex historical processes that shaped institutions, such as the exploitation of resources by colonial powers.
• AJR’s framework overlooks the lasting impact of colonial institutions, which were designed to extract wealth and reinforce structural dependencies, benefiting metropolitans at the expense of colonies