Unlocking the Wealth of Indian Nations

Author: Terry L. Anderson, Ann M. Carlos, Christian Dippel, Dustin Frye, D. Bruce Johnsen, André Le Dressay, Bryan Leonard, Frank D. Lewis and Robert J. Miller

Unlocking the Wealth of Indian Nations uses the tools of economics, political science, and law to explain how top-down institutions have shackled reservation economies and why bottom-up institutions are necessary to unlock the human, physical, and natural capital of Native Americans.

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Summary

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Most American Indian reservations are islands of poverty in a sea of wealth, but they do not have to remain that way. To extract themselves from poverty, Native Americans will have to build on their rich cultural history including familiarity with markets and integrate themselves into modern economies by creating institutions that reward productivity and entrepreneurship and that establish tribal governments that are capable of providing a stable rule of law. The chapters in this volume document the involvement of indigenous people in market economies long before European contact, provide evidence on how the wealth of Indian Nations has been held hostage to bureaucratic red tape, and explains how their wealth can be unlocked through self-determination and sovereignty.

Critic Reviews

“The comparative development of the American Indian Nations provides an unrivaled natural experiment with enormous relevance to social scientists. This volume isn't therefore just a practical agenda to help some of the most marginalized people in the US, it's also an important intellectual milestone.”

Unlocking the Wealth of Indian Nations provides a rare look at Native Americans and their history and society. In this scholarly and well-researched book, the authors convincingly show that federal policies are keeping Native Americans economically underdeveloped. They also show that it is important to end discriminatory policies against the Native Americans to let them realize their full potential and play a role in making America stronger. It is a must-read book for understanding Washington’s discriminatory policies about Native Americans. The Washington BookReview
-- James Robinson, University of Chicago
In Unlocking the Wealth of Indian Nations, Terry Anderson has assembled an excellent collection of essays confirming the failure of more than a century of top-down, federal paternalism and the promise of bottom-up institutional development by autonomous Indian nations and their citizenry. Through many examples drawn from a wide sampling of native populations, the authors provide convincing proof that, as in the past, property rights and trade are the keys to unlocking the future wealth of Indian nations. -- James Huffman, Lewis & Clark Law School

About the Author

Terry L. Anderson is William A. Dunn Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center and John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.