Prosperity

About: Prosperity is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 13796 publications have been published within this topic receiving 301093 citations.

The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity

Abstract: Two MacArthur Prize Fellows argue that to get out of its current economic crisis industry should abandon its attachment to standardized mass production for a system of flexible specialization

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Abstract: In the West are the 'haves', while much of the rest of the world are the 'have-nots'. The extent of inequality today is unprecedented. Drawing on an extraordinary range of contemporary and historical examples, Why Nations Fail looks at the root of the problems facing some nations. Economists and scientists have offered useful insights into the reasons for certain aspects of poverty, such as Jeffrey Sachs (it's geography and the weather), and Jared Diamond (it's technology and species). But most theories ignore the incentives and institutions that populations need to invest and prosper: they need to know that if they work hard, they can make money and actually keep it - and the key to ensuring these incentives is sound institutions. Incentives and institutions are what separate the have and have-nots. Based on fifteen years of research, and stepping boldly into the territory of Ian Morris's Why the West Rules - For Now, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson blend economics, politics, history and current affairs to provide a new, persuasive way of understanding wealth and poverty. And, perhaps most importantly, they provide a pragmatic basis for the hope that those mired in poverty can be placed on the path to prosperity.

The Second Industrial Divide

Abstract: This is a book unlikely to be read by historians. Or rather, they may read it, but in their capacity as citizens concerned as the book's subtitle puts it about "Possibilities for Prosperity." The Second Industrial Divide is indeed a work of contemporary analysis. Like other books this publishing season, it is intended to give us the lowdown about the economic crisis of the 1980s. But this one is also very much a work of history. The book is remarkable in general for its intellectual breadth, but in particular for its reliance on recent scholarship in American social and economic history. More than that, it is deeply historical in perspective and sensitive to the contingent, complex nature of industrial change. Historians are accustomed to draw on the social sciences. In this book, the terms of trade have shifted. Historical scholarship contributes crucially to the making of The Second Industrial Divide. What it offers in return are not the standard commodities of socialscience industry not conceptual and methodological tools that can be appropriated for the historian's use but lessons in the art of sweeping historical analysis and conclusions about the nature of industrial change worth pondering by historians. Michael Piore is a labor economist, well known for his work on labormarket segmentation and labor migration. Charles Sabel, the younger of the two, is the author of Work and Politics: The Division of Labor in Industry (1982), a highly original comparative analysis of shop-floor relations in modern industrial systems. Both are MacArthur Fellows and members of a notable assemblage of MIT social scientists working on industrial relations and technological change. Piore and Sabel can perhaps best be characterized as modern-day institutionalists and, like John R. Commons in his time, contemporary empirical analysis has led them to a serious engagement with history. The key concept of their book is that of "industrial divides" the moments at which choices are made that fix the future course of industrial develop-

A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety

Abstract: Policy-makers are considering large-scale programs aimed at self-control to improve citizens’ health and wealth and reduce crime. Experimental and economic studies suggest such programs could reap benefits. Yet, is self-control important for the health, wealth, and public safety of the population? Following a cohort of 1,000 children from birth to the age of 32 y, we show that childhood self-control predicts physical health, substance dependence, personal finances, and criminal offending outcomes, following a gradient of self-control. Effects of children's self-control could be disentangled from their intelligence and social class as well as from mistakes they made as adolescents. In another cohort of 500 sibling-pairs, the sibling with lower self-control had poorer outcomes, despite shared family background. Interventions addressing self-control might reduce a panoply of societal costs, save taxpayers money, and promote prosperity.