Discover the Best Books Written by James A. Robinson

James Alan Robinson (born in 1960) is a British economist and political scientist. He is currently the Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies and University Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago. He also serves as the Institute Director of The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts at the Harris School. 

Robinson taught at Harvard University between 2004 and 2015 and at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Southern California, and the University of Melbourne. He studies what makes countries different by focusing on the underlying economic and political institutions that lead some to prosperity and others to conflict. 

Daron Acemoglu is the co-author of books such as The Narrow Corridor, Why Nations Fail, and Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Robinson studied economics at the London School of Economics (BSc), the University of Warwick (MA), and Yale University (Ph.D.). His main research interests are in comparative economic and political development with a focus on the long run, particularly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2004, he was appointed Associate Professor of Government at Harvard. He later held named chair positions at Harvard, first as the David Florence Professor of Government (2009-2014) and later as the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government (2014-2015). On July 1, 2015, he was appointed as one of nine University professors at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies of the University of Chicago.

He also holds the title Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies. On 9 May 2016, professor Robinson was awarded an honorary doctor's degree by the National University of Mongolia during his first visit to the country. 

He has conducted research in countries around the world, including Botswana, Chile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Colombia, where he teaches every summer at the University of the Andes in Bogotá. After meeting at the London School of Economics, he has collaborated extensively with long-time co-author Daron Acemoglu.