Poverty, Institutions, and Economic Development in the Long Run

If solving the problem of poverty can be addressed by technical innovations and foreign aid, then why have innovations and aid had such a minor impact on economic development over the past five decades? This project brings together researchers from across the Stanford Campus to examine the long term institutional constraints on economic development. Our goal is to provide policy makers with a framework that can allow them to determine the conditions under which particular innovations are likely to have positive payoffs, and the conditions under which resources will likely be wasted.