A central thesis of this chapter is that economic growth and the development of freedom are complementary processes of societal development. Economic growth provides the resources (and leisure) to support more complex societies; and it is unlikely to persist in the long run without the...

My assignment for this conference is to explore the relevance of "institutional competition" as a deliberate strategy in improving the competitiveness of economies. The historical record gives us a very mixed response with respect to the success of economies in deliberately altering the...

The argument of this essay is that the immense productivity increases resulting from technological developments of the past century and a half could only be realized by fundamental changes in the institutional and organizational structure--a supply side argument; and that the consequent tensions...

The rational choice framework assumes that individuals know what is in their self interest and make choices accordingly. However, sometimes, especially in situations of uncertainty rather than risk, people act in part upon the basis of myths, dogmas, ideologies and "half-baked" theories. We...

In this essay I intend to briefly summarize the essential characteristics of the new institutional economics, to describe how it differs from neo- classical theory, and then to apply its analytical framework (as I see it) to problems of development.

The upper-income, advanced industrial countries of the world today all have market economies with open competition, competitive multi-party democratic political systems, and a secure government monopoly over violence. Such open access orders, however, are not the only norm and equilibrium type...

The three articles that follow this introductory essay reflect a rapidly growing effort in the social sciences to integrate institutional analysis with more traditional theory. In economic history, institutional analysis attempts to expand and enrich our understanding by modeling the ways in...