A Nobel economist argued rules matter more than resources for getting rich

Douglass North argued that the biggest difference between rich and poor nations isn't natural resources or even technology, but institutions: the formal rules like property rights and contract enforcement, plus the informal norms like trust, that determine whether people find it worthwhile to invest, trade and build long-term. Weak institutions, he showed, can keep a resource-rich country poor for centuries.

— Douglass North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance — 1990; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 1993
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