Researchers have found that countries that were settled by europeans who were primarily interested in resource extraction were

less likely to protect private ownership rights and limit the power of the government.

Explanation:

This is because, the focus of the Europeans were primarily on the extraction of the resources, and they wanted to be the only one that will have access to the resource and benefit from it.

They know that if a law that will protect the rights of the private ownership was enacted at the time, they would not have total dominance that they enjoyed at that time. This is because, there would be an opportunity for the private owners to challenge them, and that was what they were trying to avoid.

In conclusion, it should be understood that, during that time, the Europeans were ruling with force and depended on the resources of the country they were colonizing.

Option B=> less likely to protect private ownership rights and limit the power of the government.

Explanation:

The question wants to test us on the origin of institutions and policies In countries and how this policies and institutions determine how a country will rise or how a country will fall.

The Europeans in order to have more power came to many parts of the world such as Africa and the Americas to form colonies.

In regions or countries that the colonial masters wants to stay for a very long time, we can observe that these countries such as the United States of America have good institutions and policies because the Europeans need to protect what they have invested on in there regions or countries. Because of their investment in such countries they would want to protect private ownership rights.

In regions where the Europeans are only interested in resource extraction they will ''less likely protect private ownership rights and limit the power of the government" (option B) since they don't really want to stay in these countries, only to extract and go.