Institutional change and economic development: concepts, theory and political economy

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
AMITAVA KRISHNA DUTT
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Development Theory ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Development Theory

This article complements Ha-Joon Chang's critique, entitled ‘Institutions and Economic Development: Theory, Policy and History’, of the ‘dominant discourse’ on institutions and economic development which takes the view that getting the institutions right (by strengthening private property rights and market freedoms) is a prerequisite for development. It does so by commenting on the concepts of economic development and institutions, discussing the theory of how institutional change affects development, and examining the possibility and desirability of such institutional change as a prerequisite of development.

scholarly journals Institutions and economic development: theory, policy and history

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
HA-JOON CHANG
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Development Theory ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
Heterogeneous Samples ◽  
Poor Understanding ◽  
Economic Development Theory

Abstract:The article tries to advance our understanding of institutional economics by critically examining the currently dominant discourse on institutions and economic development. First, I argue that the discourse suffers from a number of theoretical problems – its neglect of the causality running from development to institutions, its inability to see the impossibility of a free market, and its belief that the freest market and the strongest protection of private property rights are best for economic development. Second, I point out that the supposed evidence showing the superiority of ‘liberalized’ institutions relies too much on cross-section econometric studies, which suffer from defective concepts, flawed measurements and heterogeneous samples. Finally, I argue that the currently dominant discourse on institutions and development has a poor understanding of changes in institutions themselves, which often makes it take unduly optimistic or pessimistic positions about the feasibility of institutional reform.

Institutions first

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 499-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER BOETTKE ◽  
ALEXANDER FINK
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Order Effect ◽  
Development Theory ◽  
Free Markets ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
The Status ◽  
Economic Development Theory

Abstract:Ha-Joon Chang, in his article ‘Institutions and Economic Development: Theory, Policy and History’, raises doubts about the effects of institutions on economic development and questions the positive effects of entirely free markets based on secure private property rights. We respond by stressing that institutions structure the incentives underlying individual action, secure private property rights are indispensable for prosperity, institutions have a first-order effect whereas policies only have a second-order effect, successful institutional change comes from within a society, and, given the status quo of developing countries, first-world institutions are likely not to be available to them.

Spanish Imperial Vassalage and the Social Reproduction of Slavery in Colonial Cuba

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-285
Author(s):  
Karen Y. Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Center Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract With the social reproduction of slavery in colonial Cuba as its center point, this essay draws on the recent historiographical acknowledgment of the way vassalage mediated the often starkly drawn social distinctions between whites and enslaved people within colonial Spanish America. Inside the region’s emergent, capitalist political economy, feudal vassalage continued to define each social sector’s rights and responsibilities vis-á-vis the Spanish Crown. The rights of enslaved vassals derived from their potential contributions to the Spanish monarchy’s imperial survival, in their capacity to populate the extensive empire with loyal Catholic subjects and potential military defenders. These concerns also justified the Spanish monarchial state’s ability to intervene between its slaveholding vassals and its enslaved vassals, by limiting private property rights over enslaved people and operating in ways that did not fully conform to capitalist profit motives. Awareness of such sovereign-vassal interdependencies challenges historians to broaden their understanding of the relationship between capitalism and slavery to include the remnants of feudal social-political forms, even into the nineteenth century.

The limits of tolerance: Islam as counter-hegemony?

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1751-1773 ◽  
Author(s):  
TONY EVANS
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Private Property ◽  
World Order ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Central Values ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Liberal Thought

AbstractFollowing recent acts of terrorism in many parts of the world, Islam has become an object of fear. While the threat of violence is undoubtedly an element that inspires this fear, Islam's counter-hegemonic threat is not limited to violence alone. Given its 1.2 billion following, Islam also offers a challenge to the central values that describe the dominant neo-liberal world order, particularly those values that legitimate the global political economy. Although tolerance is an important value in liberal thought, tolerance cannot be exercised where counter-hegemonic threats include challenges to the central tenets of liberalism. This article argues that the current fear of Islam is motivated by just such a challenge. By looking at four central concepts where liberal and Islamic thought diverge – reason and revelation, private property, rights and duties, and government and state – this article seeks to gain a more nuanced insight into current attitudes towards Islam and the fear of counter-hegemony.

scholarly journals In the Mainstream: Environmental Attitudes of Mid-South Forest Owners

1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Bliss ◽  
Sunil K. Nepal ◽  
Robert T. Brooks ◽  
Max D. Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
General Public ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Forest Practices ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Nipf Owners

Abstract A 1992 telephone survey of households in seven mid-South states provided data for comparing the opinions of NIPF owners with those of the general public. Topics explored included traditional forest management practices, governmental regulation of tree cutting to protect environmental values, and trade-offs between environmental protection, private property rights, and economic development. In each of these areas the views of NIPF owners were found not to differ significantly from those of the general public. A widespread desire for environmental protection tempers views toward forest practices, forest-based economic development, and private property rights. The relationships between NIPF owners' demographic characteristics, ownership activities, and opinions were explored. Study results challenged common assumptions about NIPF owners, questioned the effectiveness of existing forestry education efforts, and argue for a stronger, more explicitly environmental orientation in all forestry activities. South. J. Appl. For. 21(1):37-43.

scholarly journals Private Property Rights, Dynamic Efficiency and Economic Development: An Austrian Reply to Neo-Marxist Scholars Nieto and Mateo on Cyber-Communism and Market Process

Economies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
William Hongsong Wang ◽  
Victor I. Espinosa ◽  
José Antonio Peña-Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Market Process ◽  
Dynamic Efficiency ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Austrian Theory

The Austrian school economics and neo-Marxist theories both have been reviving in recent years. However, the current academic discussion lacks a debate between two schools of economics with diametrically opposed views. This paper is the first and an initial Austrian challenge to Neo-Marxist scholars Nieto and Mateo’s argumentation that cyber-communism and the Austrian theory of dynamic efficiency are consistent to enhance economic development. Their argument focuses on two issues: (a) the existence of circular reasoning in the Austrian theory of dynamic efficiency, and (b) dynamic efficiency and full economic development could be strongly promoted in a socialist system through new information and communication technologies (ICT) and the democratization of all economic life. While cyber-communism refers to cyber-planning without private property rights through ICT, dynamic efficiency refers to the entrepreneurs’ creative and coordinative natures. In this paper, first, we argue that the hypothesis that dynamic efficiency and cyber-communism is not compatible. Contrary to the above cyber-communist criteria, the Austrian theory of dynamic efficiency argues that to impede private property rights is to remove the most powerful entrepreneurial incentive to create and coordinate profit opportunities, the entrepreneurial incentives to create and coordinate profit opportunities are removed to identify human problems and the ability and willingness to solve them. Second, we argue that the cyber-communism system is inconsistent with economic development. In this regard, we explain how the institutional environment can cultivate or stifle dynamic efficiency and economic development. Having briefly outlined the central argument of Nieto and Mateo, we examine the institutional arrangement supporting cyber-communism. After that, we evaluate the implications of cyber-communism in the dynamic efficiency process. It becomes manifest that Nieto and Mateo’s accounts are too general to recognize the complexity of how economic development works.

Commons Sense: Common Property Rights, Efficiency, and Institutional Change

1998 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Clark
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Common Property ◽  
Market Failure ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Relative Prices ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Land Owners ◽  
The Rich

Common property rights were widespread in English agriculture for at least 600 years. Since privatizing common fields allegedly produced huge profits in the eighteenth century, common land owners seemingly squandered 15 percent of potential income for generations. Ingenious explanations have been produced for this market failure. This article argues for a simple, brutal resolution. Common fields survived because enclosure was generally unprofitable before 1750, when changing relative prices made private property rights marginally more efficient. Then people responded quickly to modest profits. The rich gains from enclosure existed only in the imaginings of wild-eyed eighteenth century agrarian reformers.

Deconstructing the dominant discourse: Chang on institutions and development

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 589-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN JOSEPH WALLIS
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Development Theory ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
Economic Development Theory

Abstract:This article provides comments on the article titled ‘Institutions and Economic Development: Theory, Policy and History’ by Ha-Joon Chang.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document