Economic policies matter. All else being equal, lousy economic policies create lousy economies.
Individually people all over the world have approximately the same natural endowments. What makes a difference is the nurture provided by the environment. And that environment is exogenous to an individual but endogenous to the entire collection of individuals which is called the society or the economy.
The assembly-line is an advance in technology which once invented was available to whoever wanted to use it. Its adoptin, however, is dependent upon the institutions and consequently the economic …

ICT and Development
ICT presents an opportunity for developing countries to make more efficient use of the available resources. However, ICT is neither necessary nor sufficient for economic development. The advanced industrialized countries were underdeveloped (by today’s standards) once upon a time and their transition from subsistence to a modern exchange economy did not involve modern ICT.
In contrast to the experience of the advanced industrialized countries, …