I know Daron Acemoglu as a prolific academic, and he has some good ideas but I don't buy the general idea he has established here. As pointed out by others I find it to be serving democratic propaganda rather than any rational train of thought. Otherwise he couldn't have overlooked such a big flaw in his reasoning, one of cause and effect.<p>The only possible example - if even that - he could use in his argument could be the divergence of North and South America. There are no other regions in the world which weren't already poor because of a myriad of other reasons, where he can say "Oh look, they were doing good, but then turned to repression and declined."<p>Back to Americas, he argues it can't have geographic reasons because at the time of colonialism South was actually more advanced than North. And it should be emphasized here the sole reason South was more advanced was geography.
The flaw is, what happens thereafter is, indeed not anymore a function of the geography of Americas, but also not of the democratic institutions in place, but of the economics and politics of the colonial empires involved. Unlike North America, South America was exploited and then left without a concentration of central political authority, leading to huge regional gaps of power which then lead to those kind of extractive institutions with some kind of elite on the top. That is the effect, the result, not the cause. To grossly simplify, the region becomes poor or the power controlling the region declines, which leads to extractive institutions, which then keeps the region from developing but that is a wholly different assertion than what Acemoglu defends for this specific case.<p>The reasons for the outcome in Americas could be found by looking at the power struggle between the colonial empires, and the decline of the Spanish Empire. North America, where mainly England and France had influence was of course bound to overtake South America. I see no reason at all to buy this romantic "because the people were given freedom!" idea.