Could Haiti's Underdevelopment Be Cultural? Nobel Prize Winners Acemoglu and Robinson Share Their Views

A widely held idea in the field of comparative economic development posits that culture is one of the driving forces behind the divergent economic performances observed across the world. This approach attempts to explain the developmental disparity between Haiti and the United States through the cultural differences between the two countries. Daron Acemoglu (MIT) and James Robinson (University of Chicago at the time of receiving the Nobel Prize), two prominent thinkers in the literature on economic development over the past two decades, have