The American Indian and Alaskan Native Development Index: The Progress of and Prospects for Indian Country

Over the past century, the public consciousness has created a stereotype of the modern Native American as a poor, hopeless person sustained only by the charity of others. While it is certainly true that American Indians are generally poor compared to the rest of the United States, some Native American populations have grown quite wealthy as this project will demonstrate. This problem is the classic question of development that has vexed economists for years: why did some tribes become rich, when the rest did not