"Beginning late in the last century, the economies of Indian nations in the United States began recording a remarkable turnaround.

Since the early 1990s, per capita income on Native American reservations has grown three times faster than in the nation as a whole.

American Indians are still poor — the poorest of any ethnic group in the nation, with 39% of the population living in poverty in 2000 and incomes less than half the U.S. average.

But the gains made among the 1.2 million people living in Indian Country have been dramatic. Something has been working in many Indian nations, according to two professors who have studied tribal development.

And their hope is that the key to such rapid progress won’t be changed by a new Congress.

Stephen Cornell of the University of Arizona and Joseph Kalt of Harvard University gathered their findings in a new paper, American Indian Self-Determination: The Political Economy of a Policy that Works. You can download the full paper here.

Cornell and Kalt find that the source of Native American progress over the last few decades is self-government. "

Get the Story:
Bill Bishop: Key to Indian Development: Self-Government (The Daily Yonder 12/1)