Why Nations Fail

C
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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