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

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HAPTER
 4 : S
MALL
 D
IFFERENCES AND
 C
RITICAL
 J
UNCTURES
Benedictow (2004) provides a definitive overview of the Black
Death, though his assessments of how many people the plague killed
are controversial. The quotations from Boccaccio and Ralph of
Shrewsbury are reproduced from Horrox (1994). Hatcher (2008)
provides a compelling account of the anticipation and arrival of the
plague in England. The text of the Statute of Laborers is available
online 
from 
the 
Avalon 
Project, 
at
avalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/statlab.asp
The fundamental works on the impact of the Black Death on the
divergence of Eastern and Western Europe are North and Thomas
(1973) and particularly Brenner (1976), whose analysis of how the
initial distribution of political power affected the consequences of the
plague has greatly influenced our thinking. See DuPlessis (1997) on
the Second Serfdom in Eastern Europe. Conning (2010) and Acemoglu
and Wolitzky (2011) develop formalizations of Brenner’s thesis. The
quote from James Watt is reproduced from Robinson (1964), pp.
223–24.
In Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2005a) we first presented the
argument that it was the interaction between Atlantic trade and
initial institutional differences that led to the divergence of English
institutions and ultimately the Industrial Revolution. The notion of
the iron law of oligarchy is due to Michels (1962). The notion of a
critical juncture was first developed by Lipset and Rokkan (1967).
On the role of institutions in the long-run development of the
Ottoman Empire, the research of Owen (1981), Owen and Pamuk
(1999), and Pamuk (2006) is fundamental.

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