Information and Market Institutions

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-50
Author(s):  
Robert Klitgaard
Keyword(s):  
2010 ◽  
pp. 82-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya. Kuzminov ◽  
M. Yudkevich

The article surveys the main lines of research conducted by Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom - 2009 Nobel Prize winners in economics. Williamsons and Ostroms contribution to understanding the nature of institutions and choice over institutional options are discussed. The role their work played in evolution of modern institutional economic theory is analyzed in detail, as well as interconnections between Williamsons and Ostroms ideas and the most recent research developments in organization theory, behavioral economics and development studies.


2005 ◽  
pp. 60-71
Author(s):  
E. Serova ◽  
O. Shick

Russian policy makers argue that agriculture suffers from decapitalization due to financial constraints faced by producers. This view is the basis for the national agricultural policy, which emphasizes reimbursement of input costs and substitutes government and quasi-government organizations for missing market institutions. The article evaluates the availability of purchased farm inputs, the efficiency of their use, the main problems in the emergence of market institutions, and the impact of government policies. The analysis focuses on five groups of purchased inputs: farm machinery, fertilizers, fuel, seeds, and animal feed. The information sources include official statistics and data from two original surveys.


Author(s):  
Steven K. Vogel

This chapter advances three propositions. First, it specifies how the conventional framing and language of debates over market governance, such as the governments-versus-markets dichotomy, hamper public debate, policy prescription, and scholarly analysis, and offers suggestions for how to deploy more precise language, enhance conceptual clarity, and refine analysis. Second, it demonstrates how even the most sophisticated analysts of market institutions sometimes fail to appreciate the full ramifications of their own arguments. They fall into the same linguistic traps as their intellectual adversaries, for example, or they fail to capture the extent to which market behavior is learned, not natural, and market operations are constructed, not free. And third, the chapter concludes by demonstrating how conceptual misunderstandings can beget very real policy errors, and specifying policy lessons for both market liberals and progressives.


Author(s):  
Yugank Goyal ◽  
Klaus Heine

AbstractWhy do informal markets resist formalizing, even when the gains of doing so outweigh its costs in the long run? While a number of responses to this question have been advanced, we discover that part of the reason could be located in the tacit knowledge (attributed to Polanyi, Hayek) embedded in the marketplace, on which market institutions run. This factor is not fully explored yet. Tacit (idiosyncratic, inarticulate, nonconscious) knowledge is acquired personally through experience and cannot be transferred or conveyed to anyone. This is the knowledge we use to act without knowing it in a propositional form. We present the case of one of India’s largest informal footwear cluster, located in the city of Agra. We show that informal markets, hinged on tacit knowledge, cannot evolve easily and therefore may remain locked-in, despite external pressures or incentives to formalize. The study shows that efforts to overcome informality and reaping the benefits of formalized market structures cannot be done without taking cognizance of the sticky intangible knowledge on which these markets rest.


Author(s):  
Carlos Alós-Ferrer ◽  
Johannes Buckenmaier ◽  
Georg Kirchsteiger

AbstractWhen alternative market institutions are available, traders have to decide both where and how much to trade. We conducted an experiment where traders decided first whether to trade in an (efficient) double-auction institution or in a posted-offers one (favoring sellers), and second how much to trade. When sellers face decreasing returns to scale (increasing production costs), fast coordination on the double-auction occurs, with the posted-offers institution becoming inactive. In contrast, under constant returns to scale, both institutions remain active and coordination is slower. The reason is that sellers trade off higher efficiency in a market with dwindling profits for biased-up profits in a market with vanishing customers. Hence, efficiency alone might not be sufficient to guarantee coordination on a single market institution if the surplus distribution is asymmetric. Trading behavior approaches equilibrium predictions (market clearing) within each institution, but switching behavior across institutions is explained by simple rules of thumb, with buyers chasing low prices and sellers considering both prices and trader ratios.


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