Albanian history is a fascinating case because we don’t learn very much from them.

Now, if asking people about Greece, people may become fascinated to Greece because of ancient history, folklores, mythology, and their modern struggle. Maybe will also care about Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Serbia, depending on various degrees. But how many people really care about Albania? I doubt it. I admitted one thing that I knew Albania only because of Harry Potter, where Voldemort escaped to Hoxha’s Albania and rebuilt his army there. And that’s it.

Now, back to the main detail.

History of Albania has been of a messy pinpoint, where the country is surrounded, invaded, and colonised several times in their history. For instance, you have the Macedonian Empire of Alexander, marking the Greek entrance. Then you have the Romans, the Byzantines, the Bulgarians, and the Serbs conquering their land. But the land that formed modern Albania received zero infrastructure to develop. In fact, by the Roman era already, Albania was already a backwater. No one cared about the Illyrians (ancestors of Albanians) or even their descendants at all. The Greeks cared less. The Bulgarians and Serbs refused to give a damn about Albanians. Look at these maps and you would realise why.

Then, the Ottomans came. And they conquered Albania following Skanderbeg’s death. The Ottomans did one notable achievement: Islamising the majority of Albanian population. Yet the Islamisation came at an even more detrimental impact: Albanians were victims of Ottoman population transfer and resentment by non-Muslim locals. Because many Albanians were Muslim converts, they were treated with leniency and many Albanians would gain power in the Ottoman court, but those remaining Christians (Catholics and Orthodox) would perceive it a betrayal. Yet not until 1870s had the Albanians begun to address their lost identity and started trying to fight for a nationhood that united the Albanians of different religious sections. By this point, they were already the latecomers of Balkan National Awakenings. Ironically, just like the predecessors, the Ottomans cared less about Albania and invested nothing on it.

The Ottomans would be expelled in 1912, when Albania declared their independence, but its independence could not come at the worst time: the Balkan War was happening, the Ottomans were retreating. Albanians, due to their Muslim faith by majority, were viewed with contempt by the Serbs, Montenegrins and Greeks. The Greeks tried to annex South Albania/Northern Epirus; while Serbia expelled millions of Albanians. Montenegrins joined the Serbian effort. In WW1, the Entente supported Serbia and Greece. William of Wied, who was installed as the Prince of Albania, only had his brief reign for few months before he left and never returned.

The Interwar saw little improvement for Albania, when Italy actively meddled and intervened in Albania. The Ahmet Zogu regime (and later King Zog I, Albania’s only monarch) could not care a damn about the hardship of Albanian populace. By the 1930s, Albania was largely described as like in the medieval age while the royal family and officials enjoyed the wealth despite widespread poverty of Albanians.

Italy would invade Albania in 1939 and put her under a coerced union. The Italians would then use Albania as a staging ground to invade Greece in 1940, but the Italian invasion was so disastrous that Greece even invaded Albania in response. Nazi Germany would come and alleviate pressure for the Italians, and Albanians came to perceive Nazi Germany as their allies and liberators. Many of them would collaborate with the Axis fighting Greek and Yugoslav partisans; unsurprisingly, after the war ended, many of them would face reprisals by the respective Greek and Yugoslav authorities.

Balli Kombetar militias in WW2.

One Albanian group stood out for fighting against the Axis was the communists, but its leader was the megalomaniac Enver Hoxha. Once assuming power, Enver Hoxha’s face revealed as a true monster.

Under his regime, the lunatic turned Albania into one of the world’s most impoverished states. It was once the third-poorest nation in the world. Only Communist Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam resembled the closest of Hoxha’s Albania. The USSR and China played the role as backers of Albania in various moments, but they could not stand Hoxha’s lunaticism. He died in 1985 without a named successor, and Ramiz Alia was selected. Alia would play a role transitioning Albania from a dirt-poor communist state into a democratic one, but with Albania forced to start from zero, this transition was poorly orchestrated, paving the way for the economic catastrophe of 1997 (the pyramid scheme). Only by a massive Western intervention with Italy and Greece taking the lead had the civil war nightmare been prevented.

Since then, the country is stable and even earned their fame (albeit not the way they wanted) by J. K. Rowling’s works. But due to the country being the land where empires came and left, where the rulers paid little to no attention, the country basically stayed poor to even now. Corruption is rife, mismanagement remains a major concern, and Albanians are deeply viewed with suspicion due to their connection to widespread criminal networks. Albanian diaspora, meanwhile, also has hard time with their neighbours, being viewed as dangerous fifth column, wars in Kosovo, North Macedonia and irredentism, plus the idea of Albanian ethnicity being put first, said something about it.

So let me summon it up:

1. It wasn’t the Turkish fault for their poverty. Their problem dated far longer. However, the Ottomans exacerbated it with their religious institution.
2. There is a long history of negligence, even under the previous authorities. From the Romans to the Byzantinians, from the Bulgarians to Serbs, and even the Ottomans and Italians, they did not care a damn about Albania. Albania’s first leaderships were ubiquitously bad at all level, from King Zog to Enver Hoxha.
3. Civil conflict and troubled history with neighbours don’t help them much.
4. Due to long isolation, many of Albania’s cultural codes, which could be seen as outdated, persist. If you know the Kanun, Albania’s Code of Blood, you should expect wary about vendetta.

It helps me understanding why Albania is so poor.

There are several reasons why Albania is poorer than other countries: geographical isolation, later national emancipation, and lack of natural resources.

The mountains saved the Albanian nation but also isolated it from the rest of its neighbors. The Albanians conflicted with the 'natural enemies' the Serbs to the North and the Greeks to the South. Sometimes they were in direct collision with the Ottomans.

The Ottomans used the historical rivalry with the Serbs and the Greeks. Being a mountain people, the Albanians were highly valued soldiers. In the Ottoman army, Albanian (Christian) janissaries were considered among the best soldiers.

After the Skandernberg period, there was an exodus of the population to Kosovo or Italy and the conversion of a very large number of Albanian Catholics into Muslims (peacefully through taxes and by force).

Albanians converted to Islam in a much higher proportion than their neighbors (up to 70%), so from the 17th century they were seen in Istanbul as Ottomans and treated as such. It is estimated that there were 30 Ottoman grand viziers(prime ministers) of Albanian origin, the most famous being the 4 from the Koprulii family.

The Christian peoples of the Balkans endured the Ottoman occupation harder, and the national renaissance came faster (and) and religiously influenced.

In the 19th century, Albania was divided into 2 local rival clans, a fact that complicated the national revival. After 1876 (Berlin congress), the Albanians found themselves in the situation of being treated as Ottomans and in danger of being divided among the surrounding countries(as happened later with the Kurds). Only from that moment did the national spirit resurrection begin.

At that time, most of the countries in the Balkans were independent (or almost independent).

Romania was a parliamentary country before 1859, there was a constitution, elections, and a transition of power. The national emancipation was made by the revolutionaries from 1848.

Although independent since 1912, de facto, the founding founder of the modern Albanian state is Enver Hoxha and the communist party. The first free elections in Albania took place only after 1990. It was more difficult for the Albanians to learn democracy from scratch in the 90s than for their neighbors, in 1997, they managed to reach the stage of civil war.

The communist party emancipated Albania, but Hodgea was an oddity even in the Eastern Bloc. The fact that they refused to be part of Comecon (communist common market) was Hodgea's most idiotic decision.

I knew a person who worked in Romanian communist foreign trade. At one point, Ceausescu ordered them to buy more products from Albania to help them. Except for Skandenberg cognac, the Albanian products were so bad that even the poorest Romanians did not want to buy them.

Instead of encouraging tourism, obsessed with invasions, Hodgea spent huge sums on defensive bunkers on the coast and in the mountains of Albania.

I had the opportunity to discuss a lady born in Albania (Catholic of Italian origin). She told me that the Romanians lived royally under Ceausescu, compared to the Albanians.

She told me that the fact that we had access to (automatic) telephones, personal cars, and trips abroad (in socialist countries) was unbelievable in Albania.

One of her uncles was executed in the 70s for listening to Radio Italia (we used to listen en-masse the anti-communist US-funded Free Europe and Voice of America).

It was unbelievable for her when I told her that a high school classmate went to the West almost every summer by car (with father and brother) and that one of my uncles, a biology teacher, had access to foreign magazines and books and participated at international conferences even in the second half of the 80s.

She got her first pair of jeans in 1994 after she went to Italy, we managed to find almost anything on the black market(expensive but possible): jeans, video and audio tapes, chewing gums, stereo(I had a Philips stereo), and almost any kind of music and Hollywood movies.

Somewhere around 1988, I heard that the first International Satellite Reception installations appeared on the black market.

We had limited access to foreign magazines, including pornographic materials.😁😜

Very correctly you compared Albania to other Balkan countries as with regard to central Europe Albania as the rest of Balkans didn’t have the rich Empire history accumulating wealth from Africa and Asia.The reason that Albania is poor, even compared to the rest of Balkan countries is bad governance due to Ottoman Rule, due to Communist Rule and due to bad after-Communism Capitalist-Mafia Rule.

In comparison most of the Balkan countries did better, with the exception of North Macedonia, been a new country occupied with it’s past rather than giving priority to it’s future.

Greece had no Communism Rule and since EU entrance, the democratic Governments were enforced into-line by compliance to regulations at times of need, resulting a better overall governance, even with most of the time personal rather than public interests driven politicians, responsible for the serious latest crisis.

Many other Balkan countries also did not escape Communist Rule but managed to enter the EU with also been enforced to comply with better regulatory governance.

At a competitive advantage to all above, larger size Turkey, had the advantage of attracting investors due to cheap-under-privileged labor force, controlled by a wealthy-Autocratic, Asian style democratic-Rule.

The entrance of Albania to EU should increase prosperity having resources and professionals that could attract investors, but although supported by other EU members like neighboring Greece, it has to overcome the powerful mafia barrier, extending to political level, considering the such of adverse effect to personal interests.

I was not going to answer this in a thorough way just felt the urge to put some information in their right context as I see many wrong facts in the previous answers.

First of all Albania is not much poorer than other Balkan countries, is richer than Kosovo in most terms and on par with North Macedonia and Bosnia at least in terms of GDP per capita numbers. Apart from other things it has a booming tourism industry with highly expansional growth rates, the past couple of years its growth rate is on the top 3 worldwide.

Nonetheless, it is true that is a poor country under European standards.

The main reasons can mainly be attributed to geography and bad history. Geography mainly due to the fact of its mountains who in the past did offer a natural protection to the country against its many invaders but on the other hand reduced its cultivating land and made transportation/trade much more difficult.

Bad history contributed to the fact mainly by the constant invaders that Albanians as a nation faced. This is true from ancient times even from the proto-Illyric tribes period and continued until the collapse of the Ottoman empire. The Ottoman period may not have been as blood shedding as many people in the Balkans present it to be, but it was excruciating in terms of economical terms mainly due to the high taxing that locals had to provide and the restricted seaborn trade being in the frontiers between the Ottomans and the Italian kingdoms of the same period.

Albania gained its independence in 1912, a big part of its population was left out of her borders, meaning that a considerable part of country’s human capital did not contribute in her prosperity.

Country suffered a lot during the Balkan Wars and WWI-WWII, during this period spent more than 3 decades of very little financial development with internal clashes and an elite that was clearly unfit to offer progress.

Now a lot of vague and plain wrong facts are presented regarding her period under Hoxha. When communists took over the country was a complete mess, bankrupt, illiterate to a great degree (this was common in other countries in the region and not only at this period), with swamps and lacking basic infrastructure. Don’t get me wrong the regime was brutal, not providing basic freedoms and restricted population from interaction with other non-communist nations.

However, it is not what is being described in terms of financial progress and Albanians did not used to die hungry on the streets. It made some serious reforms, almost eradicated analphabetism, expanded cropland surface to levels not achieved even today, expanded its electricity network cover up to 95+%, merely achieved energy efficiency, built most of the dams the country still uses today and industrialized the country to a level not seen before. Also the regime spent immensely on the military and no the majority of the funds were not spend on bunkers that was a small part of it all. To give you an example the county had a total of about 95+ fighter jets by the early 80s(!), this is the number that Italy has today..

After the collapse of communism there was another tragedy that hit the country which to my belief is a determining factor that left Albania behind in economic development. There was a period of total destruction of country’s industrial and (not only) assets. Planes, vessels were being sold for scrap, whole production lines stolen, weaponry was being sold in the black market, people were leaving en mass - an utter mess.

To make matters much worse, in 1997 the country experienced a bloody civil war that technically bankrupted them. So it was the only Eastern economy that escaped communism and went bankrupt just 6 years after entering the free market world! This to me is the deciding factor that left Albania behind in her modern era, while other countries were establishing their positions in this new economy and running under impressive growth rates, Albania had to start again from scratch.

A lot can be said for her current policies but this is perhaps another topic..

Albania is poor because of more then a century of harassment, bullying and isolation from imperialistic regional powers, namely Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy.

Starting from 1878 these countries would do everything in their power to annex Albanian territories, expell Albanians from their lands and possibly destroy the Albanian state founded in 1912. They had the complete support of the European powers.

The destruction of Albania was not seen as a problem by Christian Europe because Albanians were majority Muslim, and the political elites of those times were more then happy to eradicate Islam from Europe. Starting from 1878 the only objective of the Albanian people and later state was to survive the exterminating onslaught. Albania survived only as a result of geopolitical conflicts between them.

Even during communism, the major problem of the Albanian state were attempts from Yugoslavia and Greece to undermine it's political and economic stability, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The struggle for survival of the Albanian people lasted until 2001, when the last armed conflict between Albanians and Slavo-Macedonians resulted in the Ohrid agreement which recognized the human rights of Albanian as a large minority in the Republic of N. Macedonia. Only two years prior the Serbian armed forces made an attempt to expell all Albanians from Kosovo when the Albanians began a struggle to get rid of Serbian oppression.

From it's conception as a state in 1912 until the late 2000s, when the country became a NATO member, Albania has been existing in an extremely hostile environment governed by ethno-religious hatred.

The effects of this religious based hateful propaganda can be felt by reading random comments coming from Greeks, Serbs, Slavo-Macedonians or Montenegrins which is a representation of the official historical narratives of these countries against Albania. You will often read such comments as: Albanians are traitors. They abandoned their faith and collaborated with the enemy against their naighbors, etc.

In 1999–2001 the US and EU finally put an end to ethno-religious imperialism in the Balkans. In 2009 Albanians were finally granteed freedom of movement by the EU. In the last decade Albanians are going through social processes that should had been going a century earlier. The regional environment is still somewhat hostile but there are no state funded plans to undermine Albanian independence and territorial integrity.

In summary, we've been able to truly develop as a free nation only in the last decade or so and it will take at least another century for the naighorhood to get rid of all the XIXth century ethno-religious imperialistic culture.

I was searching to give you a perfect answer, just to remember I saw the below pictures on Quora, answering some other question. However, they are perfect answer for the question:

So…. kudos to whoever did this, I think all things are covered. Are they not?

Also apologies to Greeks there is a mentioning of Macedonia where it should be Paeonia or at least North Macedonia. Take it with a pint of humour.

I have just recently moved from Albania to Brussels. I was living in Albania for 2.5 months and I was shocked to find out of all the countries in the world I have lived/worked in (8 so far including 3 very, very rich ones) Albania is my absolute favourite. I adore Albania. Now to answer the question:

1. Communism (Albania style). Unless you heave researched this and actually lived in Albania and gone to the Bunk Art 1& 2 museums it is almost impossible to understand what Communism was like for Albania. Albania was like North Korea today only worse. Having a regime like that for 40 years deeply - and I mean neurocognitively - affects a people. Alabnia is still recovering from this and it will take time.
2. Communism (in general). I study at a university in a neighbouring country which was also formerly communist and what people don’t understand is that communism was like cancer in these regions. Imagine someone barely surviving cancer and having to go through years of chemotherapy just survive. Well that’s what it’s like. Albania, like Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania etc. is in remission, but it will take time for them to build back up and learn how to function. You need to realise the generation alive now is the first one where things we take for granted - i.e. banking, shares, accounting etc., private companies - are a normal, every day part of life. Albania didn’t have cars until the mid-90s!
3. French Pedagogy. This will sound strange, but let me explain. I lived next to the Ecole Internationale Francaise de Tirane. Enver Hoxha, the guy who was dictator for 40 years was educated at a French private school then at French universities. French pedagogy is amongst the very worst on Earth. Before coming to Albania, I did a 1 year exchange at the Sorbonne, and the nature of French pedagogy from nurseries to grandes ecoles and universities is essentially fascist-totalitarian. It was so bad I made a formal complaint to the university which I also sent to President macron. Students never debate with professors; children are taught to shut up and listen and publicly degraded as ‘idiots’ for making mistakes etc. The entire French education system is geared to producing people inclined to be sympathetic to Fascist-Stalinist systems of thought. e.g. think about how the vast majority of the MILLIONS of French people who voted for Le Pen were young i.e. just out of school or university. This is also why the French Government was so keen to collaborate with the Nazis - it was merely a re-enactment of their childhoods and them being good little school children all over again. So, in my view, the hideous dictatorship of Hoxha is a direct result of his French education and hence … points 1 and 2 above.
4. Organised Crime. When I took the guided tour the ferocious reputation of the Albanian Mafia was brought up. The guide said - ‘well it’s like children who were abused for years and years, when they grow up they have lots of anger and hatred and have to find a way to express it.’ A lot of people in the Albanian Mafia didn’t have a choice. In the 90s post communist collapse Albania was like someone having a nervous breakdown - imagine being the cancer patient (see above) and then having all your loved ones die in a car accident and your house burn down and all your savings stolen. That was basically the position Albania found itself in, in the 90s. AND they had had NO CONTACT WHATSOEVER with the outside world for 40 years. Can you see why people resorted to trying to make money any way they could? Why they didn’t trust politicians etc?
5. Political Naiveté & Inexperience. Albania is trying VERY hard to transform itself into a modern European country. The euro is already a de facto second currency and as the tour guide said: ‘for us that’s what EU membership is - the light at the end of the tunnel after so many years of darkness’. This takes time, but I have no doubt they will make it, which will be a tremendous achievement, and that in the long run they will produce some very important EU politicians and contribute greatly to the EU.
6. Non-genocidal history & Lack of Mass-theft. Compare Albania with Belgium (the Congo), the UK (slavery and imperialism), the USA (slavery), France (colonialism), Netherlands (colonialism and slavery) etc. The vast displays of wealth in many parts of the world today are the results of vast thefts of other people’s resources and even peoples millions of whom were effectively worked to death. Albania doesn't have that stain on its history. They were the only country in Europe that had more Jews after WW2 than before.
7. Poor in what sense? I lived in Paris for 10 months and I can honestly say I would rather live in Tirana. Why? Albanians are, without doubt, the most polite, hospitable and welcoming people I have EVER met. I absolutely loved Albania and it is without doubt my favourite place on Earth. I will be going back in future and buying property there too when I have the money. Albanians may not have a lot of money but they are wealthy in other ways which ‘rich’ countries are not. For example, all of the signal boxes for the phone exchanges are painted with pop culture characters in a way that gives you a joy for life you don’t get in Paris, London, Amsterdam etc. So if you want to help them, go there and spend some money!

Lived for a 26 years in Albania then moved on. Albania has some big problems, even today when developing countries are growing fast Albania is stagnating. Three years ago I did some calculations. Albanians average GDP growth at the time for the last 3 years was 1.83%. If Albania grows with the same speed it will will reach Croatia’s GDP/capita (if Croatia stays put) on year 2211 (around 200 years from now).

I like Sami’s answer and want to add a couple of more points.

• Immigration, No one mentioned immigration as a factor why Albania is so poor. Once upon a time immigrants where bringing remittances back home. At a certain point it was about 27% of the whole GDP. This is crazy. Today the problem is that most of the skilled people in Albania have either left Albania or are trying to leave. If most of your talented resources want to leave the country this is a big problem. In 2016–17, 300 000 people applied for the US Visa lottery program. You need to be more than 18 years old to be eligible and less than 60 (I think). Don’t know the exact number of the Albanian labor force but 300 000 out of the 2.8 million- (kids and elders) it a lot.
• Mentality. Mentality itself can be divided in other subtopics.
• Communist mentality - People in Albania divide themselves in democrat and socialists. Democrats call the Socialists Communist. The truth is that both parties were created by ex-communists, and both of them have people which have no idea how modern economics work, how the governments should make policies and not force their way into businesses, media and the jurisdictional system. Most of Albanians want to work for the government. They want the gov to create jobs, to employ them, to heal them, to build a perfect world for them just because they are asking for it. As a conclusion in Albania very few people work. In villages when there is a flood, people don’t have insurances but still want their cows, goats back from the gov (taxpayers money). This is seen as something absolutely normal.
• The “I’m Someone” Mentality - Coffee shops are full of well dressed people and no one is working. Lots of people in Albania are grown with a mentality that they’re great, they’re parents cuddle them so much, have very high expectations from them, pay for USELESS private universities. (I have friends who have diplomas from Universities which don’t exist anymore, funny eh?). They were not good at reading but all of them got law degrees. You may ask whats the problem here? Well, if you’re grown up with the mentality that you deserve all this and when you look around and find that the biggest employer is the government, you will start throwing elbows back and forth for that position, And none of these guys/girls will do a job as a waiter. Why because they think it’s better to drain their parents money.
• The “Politic Analyst” mentality - Most of the Albanian TV is filled either with Political Shows, or Political News. There is so much politics going on that everybody thinks as one. Every day of the week you can find your preferred politicians arguing with the so called “Politic analysts” which are nonetheless paid people by the other party. Funny, eh? It always feels like the elections are tomorrow in Albania. As such everybody feels, thinks and thinks as a politician, which is disgusting.
• The “I don’t pay the taxes because the gov will misspend ” mentality - No one wants to pay taxes in Albania, they will do everything to dodge the government from getting the money. At the same time they want higher pensions, higher salaries, “free” healthcare, paved roads, water 24/7. There was a period that 80% of Albania was not paying for electricity. My mom was a high school teacher and her colleagues were calling her fool for paying electricity bill. Crazy, right? Things have changed a bit because 2 years ago the new PM forced lots of people to pay, people got crazy but in the end they paid. There is still lots of unpaid money which was “frozen” from periods between 1996-early 2000s. And that is still a lot of $ not paid by Albanians. There are still people who think they deserve better gov service because they’re paying just for electricity. This is so spread that most of the business owners don’t pay taxes too. They say that if they paid taxes would bankrupt, as a such they hire lots of people in black (no benefits, paid cash). These businesses don’t give a coupon to the buyer and the buyer happily accepts to pay the 10% to the business owner instead of the government who will use it to pay elders, healthcare, build roads and bridges. That’s why there are businesses who are filthy rich and act as they’re going to bankrupt in the near future.
• “Fake” Middle class. There is something called middle class in Albania which in fact is just above the poverty line. People in Albania consider themselves middle class when they can eat food at home and upper middle class when they can afford a car. Being a Teacher in most of the West is a good middle income paying job. My mom has been working for 29 years as a high school teacher and her salary is around $500 net/month. If you start fresh, it’s going to be around $410/month. Renting an apartment in the capital will drain you at least $300 and then you’ll have $110 for food, clothing and leisure. You can’t afford having a child, forget it. If you have a wife or husband and is working, will be easier for you but again, good luck saving some money and building a future.

There are lots of problems with the country, But people I think are the major problem. They have been so easily manipulated and believe in their political leaders as if they were gods. As someone has said time ago: “Every country deserves the leaders that they have” , because they’re the mirror of their citizens. I have family, friends back there but wouldn’t go back to a country which doesn’t represent me.

Sorry for the long read. Hopefully you understand more of the Albanian economy/mentality.

When considering this type of question, one of my favorite countries to think about is Chad.

Why? Because Chad is fucked. Hilariously so, in a “dark humor” kind of way.

When countries were drawing cards in the mid-20th century, Chad drew all of the worst ones:

• landlocked
• desert
• mostly surrounded by warzones, closed regimes, or other landlocked desert countries
• far far away from any major trade routes

There’s basically nothing Chad can do about it short of conquering their way to a coastline. No “cultural” movement. No anti-corruption campaign. No “but Singapore did it waaaah”.

Chad is just fucked, and will be for the foreseeable future. Along with Niger and Mali and its other Sahelian neighbors.

But it wasn’t always fucked. Chad used to be, well, a chad. A long time ago Chad was part of the Kanem-Bornu Empire, one of the many “Sahelian Kingdoms” in Africa that grew fat on the trade routes connecting the region to the Mediterranean.

I’ve seen different maps for Kanem-Bornu that focus on Chad or Niger (as in this map). Either way both countries are fucked today.

So what happened? How did Chad go from Beast of the Sahel to, you know… developing.

This.

In a nutshell: the Europeans started to explore the oceans and make contact with coastal peoples. In Africa they made landfall on the West coast and began to trade directly with the peoples there, totally cutting out the Sahel. The Sahel to this day has not recovered from that, and is an economic basket case today.

My other favorite country to think about for this question, is Singapore.

Singapore is, basically, a tiny barren rock floating in the middle of Southeast Asia. There is virtually nothing of value on the island to grow or extract.

But Singapore is not fucked. Why?

For that we have to delve into its history. You see, Singapore used to be beyond fucked. Indeed, it was such a shitty, useless rock that almost no one wanted to live there, and while it became parts of various empires in the area, it never became anything close to the Singapore we know it as today.

So what changed? How did Singapore go from flyover island to the center of commerce in the region?

This.

In a nutshell: as the Europeans made sustained (and profitable) oceanic contact with East Asia, they began to conquer and develop ports in the area to carry the trade.

Singapore was taken by the British. They found it very useful as a transshipment point — the island handled the exploding Opium Trade between British India, China, and the UK itself.

Yep! I know.

When the Suez Canal opened the economy of Singapore really took off, and it became the centerpiece of trade between Europe and Asia.

From Wikipedia:

During the subsequent decades, Singapore grew to become an important port in the region. Its success was due to several reasons including the opening of the Chinese market, the advent of ocean-going steamships, the dramatic reduction in the time and cost of shipping goods to Europe after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and the production of rubber and tin in Malaya. Its status as a free port provided a crucial advantage over other colonial port cities in Batavia (now Jakarta) and Manila where tariffs were levied, and it drew many Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Arab traders operating in South-East Asia to Singapore.

The later opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 would further boost trade in Singapore. By 1880, over 1.5 million tons of goods were passing through Singapore each year, with around 80% of the cargo transported by steamships. The main commercial activity was entrepôt trade which flourished under no taxation and little restriction. Many merchant houses were set up in Singapore mainly by European trading firms, but also by Jewish, Chinese, Arab, Armenian, American and Indian merchants. There were also many Chinese middlemen who handled most of the trade between the European and Asian merchants

So we have two countries here, affected enormously by the same event, one for the worse and one for the better.

What can we draw from that?

Each era in history has certain “rules of the game.” Those rules benefit some players, and not others.

Before the Europeans came around with their sailboats, the rules of the game benefited places like Chad, and did not benefit places like Singapore. But then the game changed, and now the rules benefit Singapore and screw over Chad.

Within the constraints all countries labor under, some do better than others. Singapore did better than other cities in its location. Ghana does better than Togo. But Ghana is probably not going to do better than Singapore. Not in this era, anyway.

Policy is useful up to a point. Policy is how you maximize outcomes within certain constraints.

Policy isn’t going to just turn a landlocked desert into a paradise.

When you look at the poor countries today — and if you exclude the warzones or sanctioned ones, obviously — you’ll usually see that the country is in someway extremely disadvantaged in the global economy:

• landlocked
• bad land (desert, jungle, mountainous, etc)
• far from major trade routes and markets

But eras change all the time.

The growth of East Asia and India, for example, is seeing a domino effect in East Africa. Lots of infrastructure is going up there, and places like Kenya and Tanzania are reaping the benefit.

We are entering a new world, and new places will win out.

(and others, of course, will lose)

tl;dr: Fortuna

P.S.: remember when Northern Europe was a dirt poor backwater, and the Eastern Med was hot?

Britain was one of the poorest provinces in the Roman Empire. Too far from the Mediterranean. But things change… eventually.

All the Balkan countries have lost the Enlightenment Age. Ottoman occupation or suzerainty and endless wars for 500 years affected these countries. The Ottoman Empire was constantly attacked(from all directions) until the middle of the 19th century, their main concern was the military. The economic and social development was late. The market of the Ottoman Empire was quite poor, in the Balkan area no manufacturers with added value products were developed. The education and schooling system developed later, usually after gaining independence.

Being poor, the main element at the basis of the independent states was the national one, which most of the time excluded the integration of minorities, so there were multiple territorial and ethnic conflicts.

Communism "froze" ethnic and social conflicts for 45 years. In many countries, this freeze had the intended effect and harmonized some interethnic contradictions.

In the former Yugoslavia, where there was the greatest 'opening' and 'ethnic understanding', the rupture occurred after 1990.

Unfortunately, the West is unable to understand the specifics of this region and 'judge' it according to Western historical and social standards.

I watch with extreme annoyance at the idiots who promote regionalization and the weakening of national states in EE, on the Westic model without understanding anything of the history and psychology of this area.

It's a matter of definition. The Balkans are poor compared to some other european countries but rather rich compared to a lot of African countries and quite a lot Asian and American too. As I said, it depends how you define rich and poor but one way to see it is with maps such as this:

As one can see, some Balkan countries are doing relatively okay, say Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Croatia. Then, the question that begs to be answer is are we asking why some of the rest Balkan countries are on the poor side of the scale or why all the Balkans see to be poor compared to the rest of Europe, wherever the arbitrary limit is set. As for the latter, in 2021 we get this picture (based on GDP per capita):

Again we see some Balkan countries doing kinda ok, similar to even a western European country (Portugal) and better than some European countries outside the Balkans Essentially the real issue is why Balkan countries aren’t as rich as countries in western Europe, like Great Britain, France, Spain, Netherlands for example.

The most apparent reason is the reason that made western Europe richer than the rest, colonialism. Until the age of exploration and the age of empires, the countries in the coasts of the Mediterranean sea were the richest and most advanced, compared to the Atlantic coast. But from 1500 to the 18th century the transatlantic trade brought to western Europe so many resources from America and Africa (and Asia too, indirectly) that it surpassed its eastern competitors by a large margin.

And then in the late 18th century, another factor made the wealth difference even bigger. The Industrial Revolution that started in western Europe and, to a degree in America, skyrocketed the production and thus the wealth. As it happened, at that time the power that occupied the Balkans, not only lagged behind in terms of wealth from trade, not only did is remain stagnant failing to gain more wealth from more conquests, reaching its maximum size and thus eventual decline… but also it happened to be away from the core of the sread of Industrial Revolution.

To make matters worse, not only was the Ottoman empire away from the core region of the industrial revolution but also it didn’t have the ideal sociopolitical environment for the Industrial revolution. It’s not a coincidence that the Industrial revolution did not start from the major power in the west, the French empire but from the reformation in the more liberal Britain. As soon as the french revolution kicked in of course, the industrial revolution spread quite well in French lands too. But generally speaking it was booming more in liberal, capitalist states and especially in countries where the protestant ethic pravailed. As Weber pointed out in his classic book, the spirit of capitalism went hand in hand with the protestant ethic.

But the Balkans were at the other edge of Europe, were mostly muslim or orthodox and were ruled by an emperor. Eventually a sort of middle class would emerge, and the national revolutions would be inspired by ideas brought from the western Europe. However even those new states would still be lacking other factors, for example the necessary coal.

When the Ottoman empire started getting replaced by new states in the Balkans and industrial revolution was coming this way, another problem ensued. While Europe had a sort of peace after the napoleonic wars, the Balkans were in a state of constant war. Revolutions such as the Greek revolution of 1821 became frequent. Taking only Greece as an example people think 1821 was a singular event cut of form the rest of the century as if the place was peaceful throught the 19th century but let me tell you, there were revolutions all over the place and all the time. Just my parents’ place, mountain pelion, priviliedged and proseprous as it was, without even Turks there it still had at least 3 major revolutions between 1821 and it’s joining with Greece in 1881. The same situation was met throught the Balkans and it wasn’t the ideal place for industrial revolotion. Greece got into antoher war the the Ottoman empire in 1897 and lost, then got a rematch in the first Balkan War where it won but the very next year it got into the 2nd Balkan War which it won again but then the next year another war ensued WWI which again Greece won but the very next year it got into, Well, you guessed it, another war, the Grecoturkish war of 1919–1922 which it lost and had to take the largest wave of refugees in history. Hard to imrpove its economy with 5 wars in 25 years on its ground. 18 years later Greece was destroyed by WWII.

Although it was on the winning side , immediately after the Allied victory, guess what followed. Yet another war, a civil war this time in the 1940s. You see it’s a bad habit of Greeks getting in a civil war. The occasionally did it even during the Greek revolution. War in a country destroys the infrastucture. Now, bear in midn that Greece suffered all these but still is relatively rich for a Balkan country. The other Balkan countries faced similar problems. They had wars even around 2000. The kind of problems that, for example Switzerland or Sweden didn’t really face. The fact that during the Cold War most of the Balkans were part of the communist world didn’t help either as its economic model didn’t work out and most of the ex communist countries still haven’t become as rich as the ones that were capitalist far longer.

To sum up, there are a lot of reasons whey the Balkans are in their current economic situation and one must look on the whole picture. Which includes realising the the Balkans are relatively poor compared to other European countries but still can’t complain when compared with much of the rest of the world.

Albania is poor because of the Ottoman and Communist legacies left behind.During Ottoman Rule, 95% of Albanians remained uneducated, illiterate, and poor. Post-1912 (independence) Albania was still the poorest in Europe at that time. The country was largely dominated by Ottoman-era beys (land owners) and agriculture. Albania did not have a single factory nor did it have its own university. From 1913–1939, Albania was also always under the auspices on stronger Imperialist powers such as Italy or Greece who attempted to annex Albania for their own gain.Flash forward to 1945 and Enver Hoxha wins. In 1946, the Communist government is officially established and the first things they do is removed all Ottoman/old age traditions of Albanians. They ban the tribes of north Albania (which resulted in thousands of deaths), they ban foreign missionaries and expel all catholic elements from Italy. They ban the construction of mosques and churches. The Communists also drained the swamps of Fier and removed malaria, a severe issue and common disease that killed Albanians before. The Communists rapidly industrialized Albania with Soviet and later Chinese support. They even provided women with better rights.Even though communism rapidly modernized Albania in under 20 years, the consequences of a totalitarian dictatorship and Hoxha’s mistrust against the Soviets and later the Chinese resulted in Albania becoming isolated and extremely poor. In 1978, things got real bad with China broke off relations with Albania. For 12 years (1978–1990) Albania remained isolated, poor, and its economy getting drained by Hoxha’s useless bunker program. By 1985, Hoxha died and another headliner, Ramiz Alia succeeded him. However the damage was done. Ramiz lifted the many restrictions such as lifting the ban on religion (Islam, Christianity) in 1990 and opening up Albania that same year. In 1991, Albania declared itself a Republic but the communists still ruled for another year until March 1992.Post-communism, Berisha himself a former communist lacked an education on how capitalism worked. He was also authoritarian and used the SHIK (successor to the Sigurimi) to crack down in Albanian dissidents protesting his poor economic choices. By 1997, the failed Ponzi schemes resulted in the collapse of the Albanian economy and massive protests which killed 3,000 people. By August of 1997, a new government won and Berisha lost power.Since 1992–1997, Albania has been slowly recovering from the economic disasters of Berisha. The economy has been growing at a consistently 3–4% according to the World Bank. The country has seen a lot of improvement since the 1990s and tourism remained a big driving force for the country’s Economy. I personally believe Albania has the potiental to get rich, but first the corrupt oligarchs and dirty politician must be cleaned. Albania has a perfect geographic position in this

Well, what I have read this far is that up till 1991 it was the most isolated country in the world. Sorta like north Korea today but even worse since it cut ties even with China. Led by a paranoid dictator that instead of investing in infrastructure threw the money in useless bunkers.

Albania went through one of the most repressive and economically disastrous communist regimes in history until 1991, unlike the fairly liberal and open Yugoslavia or the perestroika in the USSR, Also Albania remained isolated and DPRK-levels of paranoia until the very end.

Basically, Albania has one of the lowest GDPs per capita in Europe, even for the Balkans. Only Moldova (which most people consider a fragile state), Bosnia (still struggling after the Yugoslavian breakup) and Kosovo (struggling after an even more recent war) have lower GDPs per capita.

Albania, as far as I know has many good qualities. to name a few, it’s a geographically blessed country with strategic long coast , natural resources and nice scenery.

• has a good position geographically, close to Italy and Greece, has a long coast and decent ports (so potential for trade is there)
• has nice landscapes and beaches (=> tourism)
• has decent resources and a relatively well educated population (=> potential for industry and services)

However, unlike most countries in the region not affected recently by wars, Albania seems to be a bit behind in many public sectors. compared to its neighboring countries such as (Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia.

Another reason was bad investment. In 1997 people lost whatever little money they had in pyramid schemes which was followed by a complete collapse of the state and a strange civil war. It was strange because people were not fighting against each other for a reason, they just raided the unguarded military depots and drove tanks on roads for fun. You would see kids running down the street with an ak47 in their hands.

Right after that the war in Kosovo started and Albania took a huge influx of refugees. Almost every family had at least one refugee in their home.

Now the situation is pretty depressing, average monthly wage being 300€ people often try to leave the country. Since is hard for an Albanian to get a work visa in the EU, they try to illegally migrate. The latest trend was trying to abuse the asylum system in Germ any but that isn't working out since Germany is sending back everyone to make space for Syrians.

For a very long time the country was run backwards and was the most isolated country in the world aside from China. However, unlike China Albania didn't have a labor force of 1 billion people to propel and revive the economy.

Edi Rama looks like he's a great European leader but he does things that irk a lot of the Albanians citizens. He's installing laws of formality, however his suffocating and strict laws and his high taxes and fines are a desperate burden on the backs of the poor. As a result Albania reported this past year, a whooping 2000 recognized millionaires. That's not even including all the unrecognized ones. So, that's actually a lot more than their neighboring countries. You see what is happening in this country as a consequence of this reformation and new laws unfortunately is that in Albania you have people who are becoming very rich and people who are living in the poorest conditions of Europe, due to new laws.

Albania isn’t poor. Albania is rich enough, it just seems like it poor because of the way the Albanian economy is build up.

There are rich people and poor people and thats it. There is no in between. There are, of course, more poor people than rich ones and that makes it seem like Albania is poor.

The reason for this is that our dear politicians, whom we all love so much, are also businessman, are also congressman, are also ministers, are also investors, they basically are everything. Anywhere you go, to a resort, to a hotel, to a business center even the street you are walking on, someone of our lovely politicians, who work so hard for us, own it. They own it, so almost all the money goes back to their hands, all the laws they make, damage only the people and makes life in Albania only harder for us, because at the end of the day the money is back in the hands of the politicians whom trust so much, that we’re ready to give our vote to them. Well if that’s not wonderful.

The Balkans are pretty far away from where the Industrial Revolution started back in the mid XVIIIth. c. and industrialization of the Ottoman Empire, Greece, Romania, Bosnia started pretty late. Actually while the Contemporary Era starts in the West in 1789 with the French revolution, in the Balkans it starts only after WWI, in 1918. So in 1918, the Balkans were like 125 years behind North-Western Europe.

The Industrial revolution in the Balkans reached even later than in Japan. Imagine that!

Albania is a developing country that has every single resource to turn into a developed one within 5 years, and it will not, which makes it a perfect example how corruption can ruin the prospect of any said country long-term.

Presently (2017), Albania's Corruption Perception Index is 39, which is alarmingly low.

The Judiciary Reform was so strongly requested by US and EU ambassadors, because “the judiciary system has lost its capability for self-correction” which is essential in democratic countries.

Meaning? Remember when you studied in school “the division of Legislative, Executive and Judiciary powers”? They are the three pillars that hold up a functional democracy. If one of them is ruinous, what do you expect of the two others?

The representative parties in the parliament follow the path of their leaders. If there are conflicts of thoughts inside the party, they stay hidden, and if they are open, the dissidents leave the party to form a new one, because it is virtually impossible to offer alternatives inside a party. This basically means that the opinions of the three main parties are practically the opinions of their three leaders.

In this scenario, can you expect someone to offer an ambitious project of economic development? The only ones who would benefit were the people. How are they related to their representatives? By a single vote each four years.

Here is how the vote works. During the electoral campaign, I promise you I'll offer jobs, develop your area, and so long and so forth. After I get your vote and win, I simply choose not to fulfill the largest part of my promises. What are you going to do about it?

That is why Albania is relatively poor.

EDIT: Well this is amazing. This might look like a cliche, but it really means a lot to me. The answer holds two thirds of my total answer views and three fourths of my upvotes, and I've posted about 160 answers.

In a completely unforeseen and surprising way, this answer managed to relate to people from all kinds of countries and backgrounds. Every comment that stated the likenesses of Albania's situation with any said country made me feel closer to people from all around the world. It offered me a “mini-cultural exchange”, and for each comment I read, I witnessed a universal protest that seems to be felt by many. It felt human. For that, I am very, very grateful to you all.

The morale? The world has much more in common than we might think.

Albania was a feudal backwater long after many of its neighbours started modernising. The Ottomans left it to languish and its independence under the tyrannical King Zog was not particularly fruitful.

It then had the misfortune to be invaded by the Italians, then the Nazis, then liberated by Enver Hoxha's communist partisans. Hoxha was more Kim Il Sung than Joseph Broz Tito unfortunately and his rule did nothing to make Albania a better place. Hoxha was a hard-line nutcase who sided with Mao in the Sino-Soviet split and copied all of the Chinese disasters faithfully until the country was almost on its knees.

After Mao died, Hoxha did a Kim Il Sung and declared Hoxhaism a unique and superior path to communism. All evidence to the contrary, Hoxhaism was meant to be the best form of socialism.

Like most other realsocialist states, Albania’s communist regime collapsed in 1989 but the Democrat Party which took over from the Communists were a bunch of crooks who literally sunk the country's wealth into a Ponzi scheme that went belly-up and bankrupted the country and almost all of its citizens.

Poor Albania! They have had some of the worst luck and most appalling leadership imaginable. It is a testament to their fortitude and determination as a nation that there are any Albanians left!

Poor countries are poor because of the following reasons:

1. History of colonial exploitation
2. Corruption
3. Incompetent leadership
4. Failed political systems
5. Extractive institutions
6. Strong class system
7. Poor infrastructure
8. Conflict
9. Foreign interference
10. Heavy reliance on foreign aid
11. Low IQ
12. Lack of meritocracy
13. Poor education system
14. Poor healthcare system
15. Lack of proper laws, systems and regulations for things
16. Poor ease of doing business
17. Frequent natural disasters
18. Crappy banking system
19. Crappy financial systems
20. Crappy criminal justice system
21. Crappy contract enforcement

22. Unfavorable terrain eg. being too hilly or densely forested

23. Lack of natural resources, especially water and arable and habitable land. Lack of energy resources can be a disadvantage too

24. Being landlocked

25. Being surrounded by poor and unstable neighboring countries

22. Being too remote

23. Being too small in size

24. Crappy climate eg. being too hot, tropical or cold

25. Effects of global warming

26. Invasive plants, animals and insects

27. Centuries old regressive cultural attributes

28. Being an archipelago with too many islands

29. Tropical diseases

30. Heavy dependence on agriculture than industry and service sector

31. Poor policy making

32. Lack of efficiency in doing things

33. Inability to add value and compete

34. Lack of any unique economic edge

35. Lack of historical prosperity

36. Poor public participation

37. Too much influenece of religion

38. Poor relations with other countries

39. Hatred towards wealthy people

40. Resource curse

41. Leakage of funds

42. Unfair lending terms by lending agencies

43. Political instability

44. Weak consumer markets

45. Poor social safety nets

46. Having more population than the country's resource base can handle

47. Environmental degradation

48. Lack of innovation

49. Lack of good consumer markets

50. Poor upskilling

51. Poor capital formation

52. Not having meritocracy

53. Too much diversity

54. Youth getting hooked to porn, alcohol, drugs etc.

In reality, every country in the world is growing and aspire to get rich. However, some countries grow faster than other while some countries reach their growth peak faster than others.

Welcome to India. The next emerging superpower and poster child of 3rd world problems.

Albania became an independent country in 1912. Then, there is no connection between poor Albania and the Ottoman Empire. I took the picture below when I invited Tirana in 1991 to give a lecture. There were no cars on roads. The main reason is Enver Hoxha closed Albania to the rest of the World, including communist countries.

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Poor countries are poor because they’re stuck in an endless loop — and it takes a lot of sacrifice to break out of it.

1. Low IQ because of malnutrition and early trauma or even genetics:

People grow up in depression, constantly in survival mode. They don’t get healthy food, a safe space, or the right environment to develop their minds properly. So they stay stuck — mentally and emotionally — and that suffering just keeps repeating generation after generation.

2. Corruption:

This comes from the first point. When people aren’t educated or mentally strong, all the power ends up in the hands of a few elites — the rich ones. They control everything and make sure the poor stay poor. It’s all by design.

3. Lack of education:

Because of the above reasons, most people don’t get a proper education. And when people aren’t educated, the whole environment and economy of the country suffers. It becomes a place where nothing changes, and no one questions anything.

4. Globalization:

The few people who are skilled or educated just leave the country. And honestly, you can’t blame them — they’re just trying to escape all this mess. But when they leave, they take the last bit of hope with them. The country loses its only chance at some kind of change.even corrupt elites send their kids abroad to protect their business in foreign countries which was built Mainly because of corruption.

5. Instability:

And yeah, all of this creates chaos. No proper government, no working system, and no one who even wants to fix it. Just pure instability from the top to bottom.

There are more reasons, but I think these are the real ones that matter most. All other reasons are caused by this as mentioned by other people on this thread like laziness, feudalism, over population,no democracy etc.. The main reasons are the loop I talked about.

So how to break this loop? A strict governce that will force people out of their lives. Just like China for example “one child policy” This is just an example. But strict governce is the only way to create more skilled population which will automatically solve many other problems.

The three winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics this year are master figures in "development economics". The main problem of "development economics" research is "poverty alleviation" in popular terms. Cash subsidies are poverty alleviation, and technology to the countryside is also poverty alleviation. Finding practical solutions to the specific difficulties faced by the poor sounds much more reliable than simply "donating money".

This year's winner's masterpiece, The Nature of Poverty, is in this way. Among them, the method of "randomized controlled experiment" advocated is used, which is popular to this day and has many followers. What is rare is that this is a masterpiece of economics that can be read by novices in economics. The homepage reposts this reading note to share the essence of it with you.

The title of the book "The Nature of Poverty" is literally translated as "The Economics of Poverty", and its content is mainly based on the research results of the most commonly used randomized controlled experiments in development economics. summary. This book defines the "poor" as people living on less than 99 cents a day (in terms of purchasing power parity), about a billion worldwide. The questions this book seeks to answer are: First, is there anything special about the poor? If so, are these the reasons for their poverty? Second, has aid to the poor and poor countries benefited in some specific cases, and why?

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Chapter 1: Think again

The whole book is divided into ten chapters, the first chapter is equivalent to the introduction, and the remaining chapters describe a theme. These topics are familiar to readers with a little knowledge of poverty alleviation. This book uses a wealth of case and research data to try to correct some erroneous stereotypes and trigger people to think more deeply. The following chapters summarize its contents.

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Chapter 2: The number of hungry people has reached 1 billion

This chapter addresses issues of hunger and nutrition. A common generalization of the "poverty trap" is that the poor cannot get enough nutrition because they have no money, so they cannot increase their productivity to earn more money, a vicious circle. So the author makes two assumptions: First, if the poor are really starving, they should spend all their money on food. The poor occasionally have a little extra money to buy more food. Second, people should spend as much money as possible on food to increase energy or micronutrients. But the data from the study show that neither of these assumptions hold true. The poorest and the slightly richer spend similar amounts of money on food. The rise in food costs is low. People will choose food that tastes better and is more expensive, rather than better value.

The explanation for this is that what the poor may lack is not enough food, but better, healthier food. Because the productivity gains from nutrition may not be obvious, the poor do not believe those are of any use. It is more important for the poor to make their own lives a little less boring. Therefore, cheap food subsidies or simple monetary assistance will not solve the problems of the poor. However, direct investment in nutrition for children and pregnant women has huge social returns.

three

Chapter 3: Is it easy to improve the health of the global population

This chapter focuses on health issues. One paradox is that we know there are cheap and effective ways to improve the health of the poor, such as chlorine to purify water, mosquito nets to prevent malaria, anti-helminth drugs, etc., but people seem reluctant to use them. At the same time, the poor are concerned about their health and spend a lot of money on useless or even harmful solutions.

There are two inferences about the reasons for this contradiction: First, the government's public health and medical service providers lack incentives and are often absent. But the study found that after targeted increases in public health-care access, people remained uninterested. Second, people do not take advantage of inexpensive preventive measures to improve their health, precisely because they are cheap and therefore considered worthless. But another study found that the poor are price-sensitive, not only will they use what they get for free, but also psychologically more receptive to free or cheap things.

Therefore, the really reasonable explanation is: first, to correctly understand the role and necessity of preventive medicine, certain knowledge is required, and this knowledge may not conform to some inherent concepts of people. So poor people may have a hard time understanding them. Second, poor people spend money on their health, probably just for some hope and comfort. They know they don't have the money to treat a serious condition, so they just want to do something to make them feel better.

The benefits of preventive medicine can only be realized in the future, and the costs (time and money) are paid immediately, so people procrastinate. Therefore, governments or poverty alleviation organizations can help people accept a choice they believe will benefit the majority as the “default option.”

Four

Chapter 4: Best in class

This chapter explores education issues. How to educate the children of the poor? One view is that the government should provide free education (especially basic education) as much as possible, and another view is that the government needs to make parents feel that it is worthwhile to send their children to school from an economic point of view. These two views are not contradictory, because supply and demand are equally important. Existing research has proven that cash grants to poor families to keep their children in school, and methods of enforcing compulsory education laws, are both effective.

The next issue is the quality of teaching. Research has found that many parents and teachers in developing countries have an expectation from the education system that the goal of schools is to produce elites. Parents may focus their entire investment on the children they see as the best prospects for success, with little or no educational opportunity for other children. Teachers, on the other hand, tend to ignore underachieving children, and are influenced by prejudice and have less confidence in lower-class children unless they perform extremely well. In the end, this becomes a self-fulfilling expectation, and as a result, children from elite families are given the right incentives to seize the opportunity to get good grades; the poor are abandoned in the first place.

If true education equity is still elusive, education aid for the poor should at least do it: ensure that every child can learn some basic knowledge and skills in school. A number of individualized experiments have shown that this is easy to achieve. Possible approaches include: simplifying the curriculum to focus on core knowledge and skills, clarifying that the teacher's role is to help each child master these fundamentals, teaching at different learning paces and even repeating teaching, rewarding students for accomplishing short-term goals, and so on.

Fives

Chapter 5: The Big Family of Pak Sudano

This chapter focuses on high fertility. After observing that many poor people have multiple children, it is easy to ask the question: Is there a relationship between high fertility and poverty? Economist Gary Becker's theory: Families with more children have less access to food, education and medical resources per child, making them less competitive and thus creating an intergenerational transmission of poverty. However, the conclusions of many empirical studies do not conform to this theory. Other evidence suggests that it may not be the child but the mother that is more clearly negatively affected by more fertility.

The key to making reproductive choices may be a woman's education level, ability to find a job, property rights and voice at home, freedom to divorce, and options for survival after divorce. More importantly, women face the pressure of social, political, economic and cultural environment.

For the poor, on the other hand, having children is somewhat a means of long-term security, so lower fertility leads to higher savings, as confirmed by several studies in China and Bangladesh. Therefore, families with fewer children may not necessarily provide each child with more nutritional and educational resources.

Therefore, the most effective population policy may be to make people feel that there is no need to have many children (especially sons). This requires an effective social security system or the development of the financial sector to enable people to benefit from pensions.

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Chapter 6: The Barefoot Hedge Fund Manager

This chapter discusses insurance for the poor. The lives of the poor are full of risks. Income and price fluctuations, health problems, political riots, crime, corruption... all have the potential to instantly destroy the poor's fragile financial chain and bring their lives into a very miserable situation. The consequences of a shock are often permanent. To make matters worse, the stress of facing risks can affect people's cognition and decision-making abilities, or bring on symptoms of depression. The poor reduce risk by: increasing workload, diversifying economic activities within the family, moving temporarily or with a small number of family members, operating their farms or small businesses conservatively, helping relatives and acquaintances, having more children ,Wait.

An important way for modern society to resist risks is insurance. So, what's so difficult about providing insurance to the poor? First, it is difficult for poor countries to effectively manage insurance companies and supervise the insured. Adverse selection, moral hazard, and fraud are all difficult to prevent. This makes many traditional insurance companies unable to make a difference. Some microfinance institutions for the poor have tried unsuccessfully to sell insurance to customers. The reality is that the need for insurance for the poor is low. The reason is that in order to reduce risk, insurers tend to offer coverage that only covers catastrophic problems. But insurance pays now, and the payoff happens in the future, and it's a particularly unpleasant future that one doesn't want to think about. People instinctively avoid contemplating this situation. Further, buying insurance requires policyholders to trust that the insurance company will help them deal with disasters. This kind of trust is rare, and a story of others not getting enough payouts can easily destroy it. While insurers may have legitimate reasons, understanding those complex terms can be challenging. Therefore, a feasible way is for the government to pay part of the insurance premium for the poor, so that people gradually see the benefits of insurance, and thus accept the way modern insurance works and reduce the risks in life.

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Chapter 7: Eunuch lending to the poor: Not so simple economics

This and the next chapter focus on financial issues. Let's talk about loans first. The poor rarely get loans from formal channels, and more often they borrow money from acquaintances or borrow usury. Why is it difficult for poor people to borrow money from banks? Because in theory, they have a higher probability of defaulting, in order to recover the loan, the lender needs to pay a high monitoring cost. Even at the cost, it is difficult for banks to achieve effective oversight. To take a step back, because the loan amount for the poor is usually small, even if the loan can be recovered, the profits are very limited, and the result is that they can't make ends meet unless high interest rates are charged. Conversely, borrowing between acquaintances is less costly to monitor, and loan sharks have access to extraordinary tactics, and borrowers are afraid to default, knowing they will be truly harmed.

Microfinance institutions such as Muhammad Yunus and Padmaja Reddy are working to solve this problem. The main methods they use are: take the form of a group of people taking loans at the same time, making the group members accountable and supervising each other; the lenders meet weekly, at which a certain amount of money is to be repaid; Conduct non-violent pressure on the network of relationships in the village. These methods can help reduce the management and supervision costs of the loan.

According to evaluations of the effects of microfinance, the microfinance that people get does help them become more specific about their goals, such as running their own small business or buying more expensive durable goods. However, microfinance has not revolutionized the lives of the poor. Because the loan and repayment methods of the above-mentioned microfinance are still inflexible, and they are relatively resistant to risk-taking - risk-taking is precisely a kind of entrepreneurial spirit. It's hard for people to take advantage of microfinance to cover a sudden big outlay, or to start a business that doesn't make money as quickly. There is also the problem that if the MFI has a credit crisis due to external factors (such as political pressure), it can collapse, because if the institution has no future, the rational choice for all lenders is to not repay.

Eight

CHAPTER 8: SAVE Brick by Brick

This chapter focuses on saving. The poor often spend years building their houses brick by brick, rather than saving some extra money and building it all at once. Why don't the poor save money? Many poor people do not have formal savings accounts, but they also save. A common method is a revolving fund, where members meet regularly and all deposit the same amount of money into a common piggy bank, with one member taking it at a time. One of the reasons why poor people do not have bank accounts is that account opening and withdrawal fees are too high, and bank access is not enough. Because of the high administrative cost of operating small accounts, it is wasteful and inefficient to build more branches. This can be improved by helping farmers get free accounts, as well as establishing some form of banking agency (such as using local shopkeepers to collect deposits).

Another difficulty the poor have with saving money comes from a common human psychological factor: the temptation of the moment makes people spend their money. Therefore, joining the revolving fund, replacing it with bricks and tiles for building a house as soon as you have some money, buying fertilizers for the next year in advance...etc. A method for saving with specific goals. But even if banks offer such methods to the poor, such as an account that cannot be withdrawn by a set date or amount, people may not use it. Because people worry about not being able to withdraw money when they "need money". This self-control dilemma is encountered by everyone, but even more difficult for the poor. Because their goals may be too expensive and too little money in hand, more disciplined and longer self-control is required. But if they don't save money, they will have difficulty investing in improving their productivity at the right time, and will be less resilient to risk, and will be poorer.

Therefore, helping the poor get closer to their goals may be an effective way to encourage them to save and achieve their long-term goals. This can be done through microfinance, or through medical and natural disaster insurance, social safety nets, etc. to help make the poor feel more secure.

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Chapter 9: The Reluctant Entrepreneurs

This chapter discusses entrepreneurship and the "road to wealth" of the poor. It has been argued that most poor people are entrepreneurial, or that even the poorest can run small businesses with the right help. this is correct. But the problem is that, in most cases, small businesses run by poor people don't make much money. Because of poor people's businesses, where marginal returns are high, overall returns may be low. And most poor people have difficulty borrowing or saving enough money to expand their business, and at the same time lack the technical and managerial knowledge to make their business more profitable.

Running a small business may just be an option when there is no other job: everyone can use their own house to open a shop, and there is plenty of time to look around. What the poor yearn for is a stable job, which can give them a sense of security and control over the future, make them more able to see problems from a long-term perspective, more willing to invest in their children's education, more able to save money, etc. . If urban land-use and low-income housing policies, along with effective social safety nets, make it easier for the rural poor to move to cities, chances of finding a stable job increase. The chances of escaping poverty will also increase.

ten

Chapter 10: Policy, Politics

The final chapter discusses the issue of policy effectiveness. Many poor countries suffer from severe corruption and administrative inefficiencies, making it difficult to implement any poverty alleviation policy. If most of the aid doesn't reach the poor, there is little point in researching what kind of aid is more effective. we all know A good economic system encourages citizens to invest, accumulate and develop new technologies, thereby eliminating poverty and promoting social prosperity. However, the rulers of poor countries may not choose good economic institutions because they act in their own interests, not their citizens'. Therefore, it is fundamental to have a good political system that imposes enough constraints on the rulers to ensure that they do not deviate too far from the public interest.

But radically changing a country's political system, both externally and internally, is difficult. The author of this book argues that, from the perspective of the people at the bottom, strengthening government responsibility and reducing corruption—that is, improving the political and economic system—doesn’t necessarily require radical reform. Local-level democracies, limited anti-corruption measures, or pro-poor technological advancements (such as electronic voting systems with photos to replace text-only paper ballots) can all play a role, for example. Multiple studies have shown that poor people are not always blind, and that political wrongs such as distrusting female leaders and advocating voting for policies based on race or class rather than candidates can be changed by the right rules. In many cases, effective improvement can be achieved simply by trying to avoid common mistakes in policy making: ignorance of the actual situation, wrong ideology, historical inertia of following old practices. This improvement may not end up being that big, but it's still important to understand how people make decisions.

Policies are not entirely politically determined. Solving big problems can be difficult, but there is room for action when it comes to improving mechanisms and policies. Carefully understand the motivations and limitations of each individual (poor, professionals, civil servants, politicians), by focusing on concrete, measurable plans, perhaps in some limited way, even in poor institutional settings Effective policies promote the creation of good mechanisms.

At the end of the book, the author summarizes five basic facts that everyone working on poverty eradication (researchers, social workers, and even ordinary people) should know:

1. The poor often lack sources of information and believe the wrong things.

2. The poor have multiple responsibilities in life, making it harder for them to make the “right” decisions.

3. Some markets for the poor are disappearing, or in these markets, the poor are disadvantaged.

4. A poor country is not doomed to failure because of its poverty or its unforgettable history.

5. What people can or cannot do often end up being self-fulfilling prophecies. Changing people's expectations isn't easy, but it's not impossible.

On this basis, it is possible to understand the life logic of the world's poorest billion people and formulate practical poverty alleviation policies.

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END

Editor | Zhou Xingyu

Public Policy | Professional Objectivity | New Think Tank

As a foreigner who has been experiencing the Balkans for 15 years, I might be able to shed a tiny bit of light on this question. No Mediterranean countries are wealthy. France might be the exception in that it gained great wealth through empire and has managed it well.

More northerly Europeans have a life ethos of living to work. They find it very hard to retire. Their work defines the person. Southern Europeans work to live. And their definition of living is sitting around with their friends and family eating and drinking and talking. Family gatherings to make Lutinitsa or tomato sauce or even to butcher a pig are treasured. All of the Balkan people except maybe Slovenians fit this description. I do not write this observation in a judgemental way. Northern Europeans will be richer financially but poorer socially and mentally.

I see the Balkans today similar to Germany of 200 years ago in that they are a bunch of separate states with similar language, different religions but similar genetic makeup. Germany had warlike Prussia to conquer and unify the states. The Balkans had Serbia with a similar attitude but different ability.

And so whereas Germany has been a united nation most of these past 150 years, the Balkans have never been united at all. In fact, a new definition of the word, “balkanization” means hate your neighbour. The nation of Yugoslavia was only a military empire under an authoritarian Tito that disintegrated as soon as Communism fell. Germany, on the other hand was reunited when Communism fell.

The Balkans spent 400 years as part of the Ottoman Empire. It was in no way a uniting influence. Bosnia and Albania and Kosovo became Muslim nations often by force. Northern Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia and part of Montenegro remained Orthodox while Croatia, Slovenia and the rest of Montenegro are Roman Catholic. Even in Australia, the Croats and Serbs hate each other.

This disunity has led to many wars. Much effort and many resources have been wasted sparring with neighbors. Bulgaria and Serbia both like Russia but are very suspicious of each other.

One unfortunate legacy of the Ottomans is corruption. What we call corruption was the system of choice in the Ottoman Empire. And many people in the Balkans 140 years later still feel corruption is the best system. But the system of corruption allows power and wealth to be held by very few people which keeps the country poor.

So the answer to the question may be in the poor work ethic as well as poor government. But by far the worst aspect of these beautiful countries is “”balkanization.”

Perhaps I should include Romania. It fits into the above description except, like Greece they are not Slavic.They are Orthodox but their language, although it sounds slavic is actually Romance. Romanians participated in the Balkan wars. Like Croatia, it leans more towards Germany than Russia.

I think it is poor because it is not democratic. Or viceversa. They say that there is no democracy when a country is poor.

The possibilities and natural resources do exist for a fast growing, but none can foresee when this is going to happen.

The EU accession may contribute to progress, or may not and it is not sure . The internal social development is the key.

A well-known scholar Max Velo 20 years ago said that Albania needs about 200 years to approach European standards.

A factor against is the fact that other countries want Albania to be poor. A strong Albania could endanger the Geo-politics in Balkan.

Albanians have 7000 years of history in the Balkans with the Greeks, and pre-date all south Slavs.

Skanderbeg is a main subject in the history of the Balkans - and he was an Albanian.

Albanian language is one of the oldest languages in the Balkans.

Albanian Arbereshe united Italy.

Albanian Arvanites liberated Greece.

An Albanian named Konda liberated Belgrad from the Turks.

Albanian soldiers fought to protect Croatian regions in the 17th century from the Ottomans.

Albanians had dozens of government officials of the Ottoman Empire, and were thus a central part of all Ottoman life.

Albanian Arnaut soldiers were the most valued body guards of Europe for centuries.

Albanians were the best merchants, spies, pirates, war lords and dragomans of both the Ottoman Empire and Italy in the 16th century.

Its only stupid arrogant Albanophobes who spread such retarded narratives that Albanians are left out of the history of the Balkans. Albanians ARE the history of the Balkans. In every way you can imagine.

Croatia looks down on Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia. They are jealous of Slovenia. They have deep emotional issues with Serbia.

Bosnia is ok with everyone.

Slovenia doesn't even care about other Balkan countries, because they think of themselves as part of Central Europe.

Serbia competes with Croatia, looks down on Bosnia, doesn't care about Macedonia, had issues with previous Montenegrian government and has a huge problem with Kosovo and Metohija.

Macedonia has a deep problem with Albanians and Bulgaria, so their focus is on themselves.

Montenegro before the elections saw itself as a democratic society, but it was a tyranny, who wanted to cut its relations with Serbia, except the smuggling ones, had and has no issues with Bosnia, competes with Croatia in tourism and never thinks of Slovenia. After the elections, I guess doesn't hate Serbia, since the Serbs actually were the ones who voted for a new government?

Albania…have no idea.

Bulgaria looks down on Macedonia, loves Serbian nightlife, doesn't care about anyone else.

Romania, mentally, in a place where Slovenia is, doesn't care about rest of the Balkans.

Just my two cents.

I disagree with the implied premise that you need to have natural resources to avoid poverty. Everything we have is simply a combination of natural resources and manpower. (The equipment used in manufacturing is itself a combination of natural resources and manpower, is it is not an exception). Now think about the market value of the natural resources needed for making some of our basic products. A car is made from iron ore, coal, bauxite, copper ore, oil silica and a few other things. If you add up the price of all these, you will find they are a small percentage of the price of the car. Even with this, the biggest part of the cost of these natural resources is the manpower required to produce them (and to produce the equipment used to produce them)

The same can be said for most things we spend money on. The natural resource cost for a house is mostly for things like stumpage fees paid for the right to cut down trees along with similar costs for the silica to make the glass, the bauxite to make aluminum for window frames and possibly siding, etc. You could repeat this exercise for most things we spend produce.

A prime example is Japan. A successful industrialized country yet with very few natural resources.

The country's transition from a communist regime to a free market in a democratic republic has disrupted economic growth and caused high levels of poverty. ... Albanians face poor public services and inaccessible social services. Many citizens who do not face income poverty remain vulnerable .

Albania, located in the Mediterranean Sea across southern Italy, is one of the poorest countries in Europe. Why is Albania poor? It is important to discuss not only the causes of poverty in Albania, but also the standards for poverty in Albania.

After World War II, Albania became a communist state under the Stalinist regime, but was not part of the Soviet Union. In 1989, communist rule in Europe collapsed, and in 1990, independent political parties were formed in Albania. By 1992, the Democratic Party had won the election, officially ending communist rule in Albania after 47 years.

Why is Albania poor? The country's transition from a communist regime to a free market in a democratic republic has disrupted economic growth and caused high levels of poverty. Most of the poverty in Albania is considered deep, with incomes below minimum acceptable standards, people struggling to meet basic needs such as food, clothing and heating. Albanians face poor public services and inaccessible social services. Many citizens who do not face income poverty remain vulnerable .

Poverty standards in rural and urban areas, however, vary depending on the circumstances. According to World Bank estimates from 2013, 25-30 percent of Albanians in rural areas live in poverty, while about 15 percent of Albanians living in urban areas live in poverty. These statistics refer to the conditions of the rest of Albania's rural and urban population.

Most rural families live in the mountains and hills. The main determinants of rural poverty are farm size, livestock and off-farm income. About 25 percent of the rural population lives on a farm that is too small to provide a sufficient level of livelihood .

Albania has recently made progress in reducing poverty. The country's main productive resources - agriculture and construction - have been privatized. Reducing state participation is particularly important in agriculture, which is now largely privately owned. In addition, the liberalization of prices, trade and foreign exchange has helped economic growth. The World Bank has ranked Albania as a higher middle-income country since 2010. The percentage of Albanians below the poverty line has dropped dramatically, from 25.4 per cent in 2002 to 14.3 per cent in 2012 .

Although Albania has historically been considered the poorest country in Europe, poverty in Albania is slowly beginning to decline. Albania's transition from a post-Cold War economy to a viable EU candidate proves that the country has the potential to emerge from extreme poverty and may no longer have to answer the question "Why is Albania poor?"

How poor is Albania?

Poverty rate: Thirty-four percent of Albanians live in poverty. That means they earn about $ 2 to $ 5.50 a day. The current poverty rate represents a significant increase compared to 2002, when 11 per cent of Albanians lived in poverty. Extreme poverty rate: Currently 5.8 per cent of Albanians live in extreme poverty .

What problems does Albania have?

In the post-communist country of Albania, there are a number of well-known environmental issues. Problems include air and water pollution, poor waste management infrastructure and deforestation. The Albanian environmental movement includes about 40 active NGOs .

Is Albania a good country to live in?

Although Albania has problems with drug trafficking, organized crime and, of course, corruption, it is generally a safe country to live in.

Is Albania a beautiful country?

Albania is a beautiful country with a Mediterranean climate. The Adriatic Sea surrounds the northern part of Albania, extending further into Montenegro and Croatia. In the southern part, it is surrounded by the Ionian Sea, which continues to Greece .

How safe is Albania?

It is a safe country

Albania is one of the least dangerous places in Europe. According to the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs, public security is generally good, and there are very few reports of crime intended for foreigners or tourists, although pickpocketing occurs .

Is Albania a good place to relocate?

This is the perfect place if you want to explore a place that is accessible. And it's not just visits, the general cost of living in Albania is lower than most of Europe. This is not the only reason why I moved to Albania, but it definitely didn’t hurt .

Yes. During the rule of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha (1944–1985), he was determined to keep his country isolated from the rest of the world. That meant no foreign trade, no tourism, no factories built by multinational corporations—nothing, in short, that would have raised his nation’s GDP. The country’s factories all used machinery left over from the pre-Hoxha days, meaning they were obsolete and turned out shoddy products that no foreign country would want to buy.

You’ve seen the overloaded boats taking Syrian refugees across the Mediterranean. After Hoxha finally died, that same scene was played out as Albanians took to whatever boats they could find and began pouring into Italy and Greece, the nearest non-communist nations to their homeland, desperately looking for work, any work.

Albania has unspoiled beaches on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas and also has mountains. If it could attract foreign investors, it could have a thriving tourist industry.

Well, there are multiple reasons, neocolonialism, shifting currencies causing inflationary fuckfuck, limited resources; but it all comes down to this: similarly to how individual poverty works, national poverty is structured such that it’s nearly impossible to get out of once you get in it. Why is it structured that way? To enforce a social stratification between the worker, who must NEVER be allowed to become wealthy, and the wealthy, who must NEVER run their company such that the workers start asking questions about what it is you do for the enterprise.

In other words, ta-daaa: poverty is just capitalism in a Groucho Marx glasses disguise. Or rather, poverty is capitalism applied to people who didn’t already own capital.

First, if your country has never known freedom from oppression but for only a few years, it would make sense to have low morale. First the Romans, then the Byzantines, then the Ottomans, then the Nazis, then 40 years of communism under Enver Hoxha. Albania has always been under the oppression of a greater or corrupt power. Even since the downfall of communism in 1991, Albania is still dealing with an oppressive government that is full of corruption, scandal, and crime. And, who has no care for it's people.

Secondly, despite what the Albanian government reports, unemployment is very high. About half of everyone I know in Albania does not have work. When you see old men and women rummaging through trash dumpsters to find collectables to sell in order to survive, you know the situation must be bad. And, if you are one of the lucky ones to have work or own a business, the tax rates and fees are so astronomically high that very little is left over for the worker or owner. Most businesses in Albania don't exist very long because of this and generally go bankrupt before a year.

Thirdly, there are no opportunities. Save perhaps a few businesses, there are no factories, no manufacturers, no foreign companies, nothing. Most everything is imported into Albania. I know several Albanians who are well educated and have graduate degrees who cannot find work, because there is none. Even if there are opportunities, most are filled by people who pay someone to get the job. There is a lot of "under-the-table" deals going on all the time in Albania. Corruption has seeped down to its people too.

Lastly, as Isabel said, when you see images of a better life abroad, either through television, film, pictures, or hearing stories, it's hard not to compare yourself to others. And, the fact is, life is generally greater in most other European countries than Albania. Albania has a weak infrastructure, corrupt government, high unemployment, and a lot of poverty. It's no wonder many Albanians have low morale and often say "f*ck it!" about Albania.

Quite frankly, after having lived in Albania for five years myself, I can see why morale is low. I always told my Albanian friends that if I were them, I would do everything I could to get a decent education, learn English, and get out of Albania. Because, aside from it's natural beauty, and warm and friendly people, Albania doesn't have much to offer... at least for the time being.