James Robinson on What It Looks Like When a State is Failing

Odd Lots: James Robinson on What It Looks Like When a State is Failing Odd Lots James Robinson on What It Looks Like When a State is Failing The third and last episode from our Chicago live show is with James Robinson, a professor at the University of Chicago and a recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics (which he shared with Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson). His most famous work is 2012's Why Nations Fail, and in that book he and his co-author Acemoglu document the institutional factors — whether it is reliably run elections or open markets that help facilitate innovation — that determine why some states thrive and others don't. So we ask Robinson the big question: What would have to happen for the US to be considered a failed state? Oct 21, 2026