Raghuram and Zingalel are two University of Chicago profs who have a surprising and powerful insight: the greatest enemies of market reform in poor countries are often rich businessmen.

It's certainly counterintuitive. But the standard image of capitalists implementing ruthless market economies that exploit the peasants turns out to obscure much that's crucial. In fact, really poor business environments -- corrupt politics, a dysfunctional legal system, poor property rights -- actually help established businesses. Established businesses have the deep pockets to deal with these problems, while small start-ups don't. So a bad business environment helps established businesses by killing off potential competition.

This explains a trend that's otherwise puzzling -- countries like the Philippines, where crony capitalists team up with the poor to prevent market reform. The poor hate markets for ideological reasons; the crony capitlists hate markets because reform would threaten their monopoly profits. So populist former president Estrada and old Marcos cronies like Lucio Tan were odd, but perfectly-matched, political bedfellows.

The bottom line is that people with a lot of political clout -- rich businesses in poor countries -- often work very hard to prevent economic reform that would enrich their countries. It's a fascinating book, and crucial for those wanting to understand development. But one caveat: a hard read. Raghuram and Zingalel plow through a lot of finance theory and write like the academics they are.