why some countries grow rich and others do not?

As I strolled down the streets of Paris and London last week, I thought why these countries prospered and Turkey, my country, did not. After all, Ottoman Empire (1299-1922) was the foremost power in the world at the height of its power in the 16th and 17th centuries. Of the many proposed solutions (technology, geography, history of lucrative colonization) the current favorite among economists is rather bland in the abstract: institutions. In rich economies, institutions — meaning the formal laws and unwritten rules that govern society — function rather well on the whole. In poor ones they don’t. That much is indisputable.

What is tricky is showing that good institutions are a cause of economic progress rather than by-product of it. Any ideas?