Chang (2011) 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...

Chang (2011) 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...

The 19th century legal historian Henry Maine famously defined progress, and by extension, liberal modernity, as the substitution of relations based on status (especially family and title), to relations based on contract, especially trade and employment. The article suggests that Maine's...

Comparative research on political institutions has begun to turn from issues of formal institutional design to issues of institutional strength. Rather than assuming a tight fit between formal rules and political behavior, these studies examine how variation in the stability and/or enforcement...