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Today on Esquire’s website, Daron Acemoglu, a professor at MIT, tackles an age-old question: Why are some nations wealthy while others are poor?

There have been plenty of sweeping theories to choose from, as Acemoglu notes.  In the 18th century, the French political philosopher Montesquieu was proposing that people in hotter places are just lazier. Today, in a similar way, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University’s Earth Institute says a lot of it boils down to geography and the weather.

But according to Acemoglu, while these theories may help explain aspects of poverty, they ignore the incentives that truly drive prosperity. In Acemoglu’s view, if countries create sound institutions and improve their governments, then their citizens can expect that their hard work will be protected by the rule of law and poverty can be fixed.  While rich nations may not be able to totally force their institutions onto other countries, according to Acemoglu, they can push for government reforms and even help the citizens of poorer nations by providing them with educational opportunities and technology.

Acemoglu’s connection between economic incentives and the rule of law is appealing but it ultimately fails to answer the initial question.  Certainly there is a correlation between good government and economic prosperity.  But why do some nations develop sound, transparent institutions while others settle for warlords or corrupt puppet governments?

And it can’t all come down to education.  Russia, for example, has excellent universities and a literacy rate close to 100 percent. Yet the International Finance Corporation ranks Nigeria and Pakistan as better places to do business.

Social scientists will keep on trying to isolate that single causal factor that explains wealth and poverty.  But what if there simply isn’t one to be found? After all, even Iraq was once home to the center of civilization.

A year ago, the people made a decision about who they wanted to run America.  And Sarah Palin did not get the job of Vice President of the United States.

Nonetheless, many have continued to admire Palin’s fighting spirit since the campaign ended and she became an international celebrity.  Employment gurus like Penelope Trunk have even argued that there were “inspiring” career management takeaways from Palin’s unorthodox decision to quit her job as Governor of Alaska.

Palin new campaign tell-all, “Going Rogue” has made her a millionaire. But it looks like this ghost-written memoir has failed to help her make the case that she deserves America’s top job in 2012.

I haven’t read “Going Rogue” but from the reviews I’ve seen, “Conscience of a Conservative” it is not.  Rather than offering a bold, alternative vision for America, Palin takes up too many pages settling old scores. Everyone — from Katie Couric to John McCain’s campaign manager Steve Schmidt — is to blame.  Except Sarah Palin herself.  And I suppose, the “real Americans” who support her no matter how ignorant she sounds.

One can’t argue that there’s simply some grand “liberal media” conspiracy against Palin anymore. Even conservative newspapers like the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal are lamenting (or lampooning) Palin’s decision to cast herself as a victim.

Across America, there are millions of people who won’t get paid millions to write about why they’ve lost their jobs.  It’s easy to get discouraged and blame one’s prediciment on the clowns that ran the company into the ground, President Obama’s policies or the banks like Goldman Sachs which seem to get all the breaks.

I’m all for standing up for oneself during these tough times and speaking out against the injustices of the past. But ultimately, it’s one’s future that’s worth fighting for.

And no one wants to hire a whiner.

In an ideal world, increases in productivity (or, the measure of employee output per hour) will lead to higher corporate profits.  Some of that extra money can then be used to hire more workers.  When more people are employed, there are more people that can spend money.  And everyone lives happily ever after.

But these days, productivity has surged, jumping up at a 9.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter, according to Labor Department statistics released yesterday.  That’s the best clip in six years.  However, that positive data has been immediately followed by bad news from the Department.  Today, it was announced that October’s unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent, the highest rate in 26 years.

BusinessWeek’s Peter Coy suggests recent productivity gains could be somewhat artificial since lay-off survivors have had to work harder than ever. In other words, productivity has risen because unemployment has also gone up and there are fewer employees left to handle all the work.

From your own experience working through this recession, do you agree with Coy’s assessment?  And do you think your company’s productivity gains could be undermined by employee burnout?  Please share your thoughts below.

Newsweek recently decided to deal with threat of the web by cutting circulation and doubling down on editorial.  I’ve been skeptical that they could pull it off, however, I have to admit that the weekly has produced quite a few thought-provoking pieces over the last few months.

This week, Senator Lamar Alexander, who has served as both US education secretary for George H.W. Bush and president of the University of Tennessee, argues in Newsweek’s cover story that universities should consider a three year graduation option to keep costs down for students. Think about how much that proposal makes sense, considering that the information revolution is enabling students to reach proficiency levels faster than ever. If you graduate in three years, rather than four, you instantly cut your tuition costs by 25 percent.  That seems a lot simpler than adding another federal loan scheme to the mix.

Alexander bases his argument by drawing an intriguing parallel between America’s universities of today and the Big Three automakers of yesteryear.  Alexander suggests that Detroit’s domination in the 20th century contributed to its ultimate downfall because the industry became too complacent under its near-monopoly.  Once consumer tastes shifted toward leaner cars produced by the Japanese and the Europeans, Detroit was done.

Right now, as Alexander points out, America produces the best universities in the world by nearly every measure.  And their customers seem willing to take out loans and pay whatever it takes to attend the institutions with the most celebrity professors and the biggest labs and football stadiums.  In other words, America’s universities are churning out SUVs of education.

But what happens when students decide they’d rather not buy into these tuition guzzlers?  What happens when students opt for three year schools or take more classes from entrepreneurial (and cheaper) online players? What happens when those flashy new stadiums and high-tech lecture halls are filled with empty seats?  It’s not a stretch to think most universities operate under the assumption that the taxpayers will ultimately pick up the tab during any tough times.

Are our universities too big to fail now?  Please share your opinion below.

What blocks women from equal representation in senior management? Recent research suggests that the barrier is less a glass ceiling than a moat around certain networking opportunities.

Despite decades of law and corporate policy, women are still underrepresented in senior positions compared with their male colleagues.

It’s not for a lack of career-development and job-search savvy among professional women, experts told Kevin Fogarty in a story for TheLadders titled “Why Men Have Stronger Professional Networks Than Women.” The real culprit is a statistical tendency for women and men to network with members of their own sex. Since men have historically been in more influential positions, male networks are often more powerful.

“Women have tended to be better connected overall, but they and many of their female contacts tend to work in more female-dominated jobs,” sociologist William Bielby, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told Fogarty. “So their networks may be wider, but don’t reach to as high a level as men, who tend to be better connected, particularly in getting professional news, to more high-status people.”

Bottom line: Women who understand these networking tangles can take better steps to address them, both by strengthening their personal pitches and extending their networks to span the gender gap.

Incremental innovation might work as a short-term strategy (and make more sense in this economy), but it’s not the way to compete long-term, says Roberto Verganti, author of “Design Driven Innovation.” The future demands something much more radical from your company. In this podcast, Verganti explains what it takes to create game-changing products, such as Apple’s iPhone and Nintendo’s Wii, and how to deliver innovation that your customers will love.

Featured Guest: Roberto Verganti, author of “Design Driven Innovation.” Copyright 2009 Harvard Business School Publishing.

Click Play to hear the podcast. If you don’t see the player window, click refresh on your browser. If it still doesn’t appear, let our customer service team know.

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An education “expert” hired by Pearson finds that students who rely on web searches rather than Pearson’s textbooks “are woefully inadequate when it comes to processing real information they need.” Barack Obama complains that his healthcare reforms have stalled because there’s been too much “misinformation” circulating over the last few months. Columnists at traditional newspapers warn the public about the dangers of relying on the blogosphere, rather than professional journalists.

The message from the gatekeepers of knowledge is the same: there is now too much information online and your Average Joe just can’t handle it.

It’s not like consumers seem to care, though.  Online at least, they’ve consistently chosen the almost-good-enough free option over paying for the professional version.   Nevertheless, many professionals who suddenly see their economic self-interest threatened by this revolution keep arguing that we should care and pony up for the real deal.  And if we don’t, society will suffer. Without facts from Pearson, tomorrow’s firefighters won’t be able to tell left from right.  Without the Washington Post, we could end up with a Palin presidency.

In many ways, I am sympathetic to these arguments.  Take the media, as the most obvious case.  Back when there were only a few media outlets for each region, the public could at least argue over the same set of facts.  Now one can get information solely from the endless feedback loop of partisan news sources.  Keith Olberman fans and Rush Limbaugh disciples might as well live on other planets.

But I am not so sure that the abundance of the web is causing this problem.  Perhaps the student who was too lazy to check whether 2+2 really equals 5 would have probably failed his math test, with our without a Pearson text book.  Maybe hardcore blog fanatics from the Left or the Right aren’t the type that can be persuaded to check opposing viewpoints, no matter how many media choices they have.

At the end of the day, I am an optimist who believes the web is more or less self-correcting and that most people can process a lot of information without the paid guidance of the gatekeepers. But I do concede that it just takes one misinformed loon to cause a lot of damage.  Please share where you stand in the comments section below.

A few years ago, the British actress Sienna Miller was burned by the press after referring to the rustbelt city of Pittsburgh as “sh*tsburg” while in town to film a movie. Miller’s views, however, are shared by many elites who dismiss the “Steel City” as a post-industrial wasteland.  But dig a little deeper, argues the Economist, and you will find what their organization considers to be the “most liveable city in America.”

All eyes will be on Pittsburgh this week as the city hosts the G20 conference, a pow-wow of the planet’s 19 top industrial nations, plus the EU.  According to the Economist, the attending foreign ministers might learn a few things from Pittsburgh’s “transformation,” as they too preside over cities struggling to make the switch away from manufacturing.  Here are a few of the lessons:

• Diversify the economy: After the steel industry collapsed in the 1980s, healthcare and education picked up the slack (and those industries are still adding jobs to the region, despite the recession)
• Partnerships are key: State and local officials provided investment, while universities and community and corporate leaders came together to develop economic and business strategies for the region
• Go green: The waterfront, once lined with factories, has been given over to parks.  The city has fostered its “green technology” sector, says President Obama. The G20 will be hosted in the world’s first and largest LEED-certified convention center
• Help entrepreneurs: Innovation Works, a state-aided seed fund, supports firms in their earliest stages of development.  The region’s 35 universities provide support and talent
• Don’t overlook quality of life factors: People are drawn to the region’s well-paid jobs, low cost of living and good schools. The city boasts the top-flight Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Opera, as well as a host of theaters. Gorgeous Victorian townhouses can be bought for amazing prices

Do you agree with the Economist’s assessment?  What should your region do to improve its economic standing?  Please share your thoughts below.

Photo by Flickr user “Herbert Spencer,” CC 2.0.

A new feature package on BNET, How to Make Your Team Pull Harder, explores the idea of tying compensation to job performance. Our coverage breaks down a few examples of companies that have made it work — and one spectacular failure.

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Employment discrimination is a wily and elusive challenge for employers and job seekers alike.

As long as people judge others based on their age, gender, ethnicity or other factors, job candidates are at risk of encountering discrimination. And as long as job interviews involve actual human contact, there will be moments when even innocent attempts at small talk by the interviewer can steer the interview into dangerous waters.

In “Don’t Answer That Interview Question,” Lisa Vaas provides a list of common questions that are out of bounds, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and proposes some tactics job seekers’ can use to redirect the conversation to safer ground. Here are seven of the items on the blacklist:

Nationality: It’s illegal to ask a job seeker about their nationality, their citizen status, their native language, or how long they’ve lived here. If asked, instead explain that you’re legally able to work in the United States.

Religion: It’s not permissible to ask what religion job seekers practice, what religious holidays they observe, or their religious affiliations. If an interviewer probes these verboten areas, try to find out what the interviewer is concerned about and to address these concerns: working certain days of the week, for example, could be a legitimate concern.

Age: Do not answer questions about age beyond stating that you are over the age of 18. Interviewers shouldn’t ask how close you are to retirement but can ask what your long-term career goals are.

Marital and family status: While it’s permissible for interviewers to ask whether you have ever used another name in work or academic situations, it’s not permissible for them to ask questions about your maiden name or marital status. Don’t answer questions about whether you have children or what your child-bearing plans are, but do explain whether you’re available to work overtime or whether you can travel, particularly on short notice.

Residence: It is inappropriate to ask how far away a job seeker lives, but it’s permissible to ask if the candidate can start work at a given hour or if he is willing to relocate.

Military service: It is illegal for an employer to discriminate against a member of the National Guard or Reserves, but it is legal to ask if the job seeker anticipates requiring extended time away from work.