Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development (Stanford Economics and Finance) [Paperback]

Benjamin Powell (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Stanford Economics and Finance | Publication Date: November 8, 2007

Why do some nations become rich while others remain poor? Traditional mainstream economic growth theory has done little to answer this question—during most of the twentieth century the theory focused on models that assumed growth was a simple function of labor, capital, and technology. Through a collection of case studies from Asia and Africa to Latin America and Europe, Making Poor Nations Rich argues for examining the critical role entrepreneurs and the institutional environment of private property rights and economic freedom play in economic development.

Making Poor Nations Rich begins by explaining how entrepreneurs create economic growth and why some institutional environments encourage more productive entrepreneurship than others. The volume then addresses countries and regions that have failed to develop because of barriers to entrepreneurship. Finally, the authors turn to countries that have developed by reforming their institutional environment to protect private property rights and grant greater levels of economic freedom.

The overall lesson from this volume is clear: pro-market reforms are essential to promoting the productive entrepreneurship that leads to economic growth. In countries where this institutional environment is lacking, sustained economic development will remain illusive.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book concludes with encouraging success stories from nations in Asia (China, India), Europe (Ireland), and even Africa (Botswana), whose economic achievement illustrates Powell's belief that encouraging small-business entrepreneurs is the best way to achieve and maintain general affluence... The writing here is vivid and intelligent. Futurists will be particularly interested in the essays by James A. Dorn on China's key achievements and remaining economic needs, as well as the assessment of India's prospects for attaining world prominence in trade and culture by Parth J. Shah and Renuka Sane."—The Futurist

"This book is a bold quarterback sneak directly into a line of argument in economic development studies that has long been ignored, trivialized or considered impossible to measure. It emphasizes the critical role of entrepreneurship vigorously undertaken in a friendly institutional setting, moving from theoretical analyses to individual and national case studies in countries and regions worldwide." —William Ratliff, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

"While previous literature on entrepreneurship focused on how to construct new government programs to promote entrepreneurship, this book turns that theory on its head. This book shows how policies that limit government's scope of action are necessary to promote entrepreneurship. It is a refreshing change, and much more in line with the new and upcoming theories in this area than any previous works on state entrepreneurship policy." —Russell S. Sobel, West Virginia University

"Making Poor Nations Rich is a serious attempt to further develop the theory of entrepreneurship. Fourteen chapters of the book cover the most important issues of our time: wealth and poverty of nations, the role of entrepreneurship in economic and human development, economic performance of transitional economies with the stories of both winners and losers." —Yuri Maltsev, Carthage College

About the Author

Benjamin Powell is Director of the Center on Entrepreneurial Innovation at the Independent Institute and Assistant Professor of Economics at San Jose State University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Stanford Economics and Finance (November 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804757321
• ISBN-13: 978-0804757324
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #192,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wide in scope, current and thorough, a bit dry, September 12, 2008

By 

Peter Lorenzi (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development (Stanford Economics and Finance) (Paperback)

An excellent text or required reading for a course in social entrepreneurship, if only for those students with a thorough grounding in economics. Covering entrepreneurial, wealth-creating activities around the world, "Making poor nations rich" provides a useful sampling of efforts to eradicate poverty not through aid or poverty assistance programs but instead through creative capitalism and social entrepreneurship. Another good example of going well beyond giving a person a fish and, instead, helping her start a sustainable business. Wealth transfer and re-distribution are insufficient if well-intentioned remedies and globalization, free trade, and even some creative destruction are much more benevolent for the poor than they are often painted.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars why some countries are poor and how they can be rich, March 1, 2008

By 

H. V. Amavilah "populi - the knowledge peddler" (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development (Independent Institute Series) (Hardcover)

"Making Poor Nations Rich" is a very good book. It consists of three main parts. The first part deals with institutions and entrepreneurship. The second part is about the importance of constrained entrepreneurship on economic development in Africa, Latin America, Scandinavia, and the transitional economies of the former USSR. The final part stresses the benefit of the reforms underlying the growth spurt in entrepreneurship in China and the Republic of Ireland, and the difficulties that challenge entrepreneurship in India, New Zealand, and Botswana.

If pressed to rank the sections of the book in descending order of their strengths, I would say: Foreword, Introduction, Part 1, Part 3, and Part 2. However, such an ordering is too subjective for a great book like this one. I give it 5-stars.

Amavilah, Author
Modeling Determinants of Income in Embedded Economies
ISBN: 1600210465

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent documentation on how economic freedom creates prosperity, May 27, 2011

By 

Michael Strong "Flow Idealism" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development (Stanford Economics and Finance) (Paperback)

In 1776 Adam Smith wrote a book on An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in which he explained how and why Britain was becoming wealthy. The American founders took the book to heart, and as a consequence the 19th century saw Britain and the U.S. to become the first nations on earth in which the ordinary working man was able to enjoy an ever-more comfortable standard of living. Much of western Europe and then Japan managed to follow, until the anti-capitalists took over the universities in the 1920s and 30s. Sadly, after having known how to eliminate mass poverty for more than a hundred years, by 1950 most economists had become distracted by Keynes, socialism, or Marxism, such that as the former colonies became free they almost invariably implemented either a heavy-handed central government or outright Marxism. Powell's book is a wonderful contribution to the growing revival of real development economics, economics that can actually be used to create prosperity. The various contributions in Powell's book show how economic freedom has resulted in prosperity whenever it has been allowed to take place. In addition to the data-driven evidence, there are heart-rending accounts of how the poor are abused by bureaucrats. Every time I think of the Mr. Bouazizi, Tunisian merchant who immolated himself and thus started the Arab spring after he was harassed by authorities simply for selling goods, I think of accounts such as this from Powell's book:

"Consider cycle-rickshaw pullers and street vendors in the cities and towns of India. Delhi has approximately 500,000 cycle-rickshaws, providing an affordable and accessible transportation service to the poor. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has mandated that rickshaws have to be licensed and that only ninety thousand licenses shall be given out. More than 80 percent of the cycle-rickshaws are illegal. This government-created illegality exposes the pullers to constant harassment and extortion by the police and municipal officers. One study suggests that on average a bribe of Rs 200 per month per cycle rickshaw is paid. Even the licensed rickshaws have to pay up. The government functionaries extort Rs 10,000,000 a month from the cycle-rickshaw pullers!"

Sadly, because of a lack of professional responsibility among mainstream development economists, the fact of the massive over-regulation, and consequent harassment, corruption, and constantly thwarted entrepreneurial opportunity in all poor nations remains unknown to most of the world. If only the protestors of the Arab spring had read Powell's book they would know that economic freedom is at least as important as democracy, and in terms of prosperity it is much more important.