In this article, we provide a broad overview of the interplay among cognition, belief systems, and institutions, and how they affect economic performance. We argue that a deeper understanding of institutions' emergence, their working properties, and their effect on economic and political...

The neo-classical approach to analyzing the performance of an economy assumes that in the face of pervasive scarcity individuals make choices reflecting a set of desires, wants or preferences. But valuable as this model has been for the development of an elegant body of theory it is a very...

In this essay I would like to apply the new institutional economics to suggest modifications of the theory we employ in economics to make that theory useful for the study of the performance of economies through time. The modifications I shall suggest are in the spirit of Joseph Schumpeter

In an earlier essay (North, 1981, Ch. 3) I developed a Neo-Classical Theory of the State. This essay elaborates, extends and modifies that essay in three directions: 1. It incorporates time into the model; 2. It is explicitly concerned with the perceptions - the belief systems - that determine...

The paper lays out a new framework for understanding problems of development. It emphasizes that all societies must solve the problem of violence and distinguishes between two ways in which societies solve this problem. Limited access orders, covering most developing countries today, solve the...

All societies must deal with the possibility of violence, and they do so in different ways. This study integrates the problem of violence into a larger social science and historical framework, showing how economic and political behavior are closely linked ...