Law and Development in the United States

Abstract Economic development is the term that has been associated with less developed countries in the Third World (“developing countries”), not the economically advanced countries (“developed countries”), such as the United States. However, the changing economic conditions in recent decades, such as the widening income gaps among individual citizens and regions within developed countries, stagnant economic growth deepening economic polarization, and an institutional incapacity to deal with these issues, render the concept of economic development relevant to the assessment of the economic problems in developed countries. In the United States, these economic problems caused a significant political consequence such as the unexpected outcome of the presidential election in 2016. This article examines the applicability of the legal and institutional approaches, which were originally adopted to stimulate economic development in successful developing countries, to the economic problems in the United States.