The New Institutional Economics: The Perspective of Douglass North

2004 ◽  
pp. 117-123
Author(s):  
Gerald A. Cory
2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
GEOFFREY M. HODGSON

AbstractThese reflections are prompted by the papers by Ménard (2014) and Ménard and Shirley (2014). Their essays centre on the path-breaking contributions to the ‘new institutional economics’ (NIE) by Ronald Coase, Douglass North and Oliver Williamson. In response, while recognising their substantial achievements, it is pointed out that these three thinkers had contrasting views on key points. Furthermore, Ménard's and Shirley's three ‘golden triangle’ NIE concepts – transaction costs, property rights and contracts – are themselves disputed. Once all this is acknowledged, differences of view appear within the NIE, raising interesting questions concerning its identity and boundaries, including its differences with the original institutionalism. There are sizeable overlaps between the two traditions. It is argued here that the NIE can learn from the original institutionalism, particularly when elaborating more dynamic analyses, and developing more nuanced, psychologically-grounded and empirically viable theories of human motivation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Marco Aurelio Zazyki ◽  
Solange Marin ◽  
Gilnei Luiz de Moura

RESUMOO artigo analisa os impactos causados pelo processo de urbanização nacional relacionados à moradia, com base nos estudos de Douglass North, da Nova Economia Institucional (NEI). A metodologia é caracterizada por um estudo exploratório a partir de uma revisão de literatura referente ao processo de urbanização brasileiro e a abordagem sobre o direito de propriedade sob a perspectiva da teoria economia institucionalista. Os resultados teóricos e empíricos acumulados pela NEI oferecem um instrumental importante para uma melhor compreensão das várias interfaces entre o sistema econômico e as instituições legais e jurídicas que condicionam as atividades e transações econômicas relacionadas à moradia. As ideias de North mostraram-se adequadas na discussão do tema, haja vista que se o direito de propriedade for mais bem definido, atribuído e garantido, nessas comunidades, menores serão os custos de transação e, consequentemente, maior será o valor do ativo e da renda do proprietário deste.Palavras-chave: Urbanização brasileira. Dinâmica populacional. Direito de propriedade urbano. ABSTRACTThe article analyzes the impacts caused by the process of national urbanization related to housing, based on Douglass North studies of the New Institutional Economics (NEI). The methodology is characterized by an exploratory study based on a literature review regarding the Brazilian urbanization process and the approach on property rights from the perspective of institutionalist economics theory. The theoretical and empirical results accumulated by the NEI provide an important tool for a better understanding of the various interfaces between the economic system and the legal and juridical institutions that condition the economic activities and transactions related to housing. The ideas of North were adequate in the discussion of the subject, since if the property rights are better defined, assigned and guaranteed in these communities, the lower the transaction costs and, consequently, the greater the value of the asset and of the owner's income.Keywords: Brazilian urbanization. Population dynamics. Urban property rights.


Author(s):  
Hazel Gray

This chapter evaluates new institutional economic theory and its approach to explaining economic transformation and political order. It explains the key assumptions of the ‘old’ New Institutional Economics, associated with the work of Douglass North prior to 2009. It then sets out the more recent developments within New Institutional Economics that engages more explicitly with power, in the work of Acemoglu, Robinson and North et al. The chapter evaluates the extent to which these theories can help explain Tanzania and Vietnam’s experiences of political reform and economic change over the era of high growth. The chapter argues that while the ‘new’-New Institutional Economics of development correctly identifies the importance of power in explaining economic transformation, these theories remained tied to a number of restrictive neoclassical assumptions that limits the extent to which they can illuminate processes of contemporary economic change.


2021 ◽  
pp. 33-51
Author(s):  
V. L. Tambovtsev

In recent years, some papers were published with the aim to integrate the original institutional economics and new institutional economics. This paper considers the possibility to solve this problem. To do this, it has analyzed four tasks: firstly, how do the original institutionalists characterize their scientific program specificity; secondly, how do the original institutionalists criticize new institutional economics; thirdly, what do they mean by the integration of original institutional economics and new institutional economics, that they have been observing since the 1990s and fourthly, what do they propose as a integration program. The analysis showed that the explicit methodology of original institutionalism, in fact, attributes to it characteristics, which are very close to the properties of “folk theory”. New institutional economics’ criticism is often based on the distorted interpretations of this scientific research program. The authors typically understand as the institutionalisms’ similarity the facts of the new institutionalism development by Douglass North, who used the data of the empirical behavioral research, but not the claims of original institutionalism. The method of integration proposed in the literature presupposes the adoption of the old institutionalism methodology by the new institutionalism, which could drastically reduce the quality of its research. The paper concludes that under present-day conditions, it is practically impossible to create a unified institutional economics.


2009 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 151-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Richardson

ABSTRACTCultural factors have often been invoked to explain parliament's decision in 1807 to outlaw slave carrying by British subjects but they have only infrequently been cited in efforts to explain why the Atlantic slave trade itself became so large in the three centuries preceding 1807. This paper seeks to redress this imbalance by looking at ways in which inter-cultural dialogue between Africans and Europeans and related adjustments in social values and adaptations of African institutional arrangements may contribute to improving our understanding of the huge growth in market transactions in enslaved people in Atlantic Africa before 1807. In exploring such issues, the paper draws on important theoretical insights from new institutional economics, notably the work of Douglass North. It also attempts to show how institutionally and culturally based developments in transatlantic slave trafficking, the largest arena of cross-cultural exchange in the Atlantic world before 1850, may themselves help to promote understanding of the much broader historical processes that underpin economic change and the creation of the modern world.


2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 330-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
GONZALO CABALLERO ◽  
DAVID SOTO-OÑATE

ABSTRACT The New Institutional Economics, led by four Nobel laureates (Ronald Coase, Douglass North, Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom), has showed that institutions and organizations are a medium for reducing transaction costs and obtaining a higher efficiency in economic performance. This paper goes into the research program of the New Institutional Economics to explain the relevance of transaction costs in political exchange and organization and show that transactions costs are even higher in political markets than in economic markets. The paper reviews the main contributions on institutions, transaction costs and political governance, and provides some lessons on political transacting and governance. The survey includes the most detailed catalogue of political transaction costs that has ever been published.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document