Avner Greif

Bio: Avner Greif is an academic researcher from Stanford University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Enforcement & Clan. The author has an hindex of 37, co-authored 90 publications receiving 13907 citations. Previous affiliations of Avner Greif include Institute for the Study of Labor & Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies

Abstract: Lacking an appropriate theoretical framework, economists and economic historians have paid little attention to the relations between culture and institutional structure. This limits the ability to address a question that seems to be at the heart of developmental failures: Why do societies fail to adopt the institutional structure of more economically successful ones? This paper integrates game-theoretical and sociological concepts to conduct a comparative historical analysis of the relations between culture and institutional structure. It examines cultural factors that have led two premodern societies--one from the Muslim world and the other from the Latin world--to evolve along distinct trajectories of institutional structure. It indicates the theoretical importance of culture in determining institutional structures, in leading to their path dependence, and in forestalling successful intersociety adoption of institutions. Since the distinct institutional structures found in the late medieval period resem...

Contract enforceability and economic institutions in early trade: The Maghribi Traders' Coalition

Abstract: This paper presents an economic institution which enabled eleventh-century traders to benefit from employing overseas agents despite the commitment problem inherent in these relations. Agency relations were governed by a coalition--an economic institution in which expectations, implicit contractual relations, and a specific information-transmission mechanism supported the operation of a reputation mechanism. Historical records and a simple game-theoretical model are used to examine this institution. The study highlights the interaction between social and economic institutions, the determinants of business practices, the nature of the merchants' law, and the interrelations between market and nonmarket institutions. Copyright 1993 by American Economic Association.

Institutions and the path to the modern economy

Abstract: It is widely believed that current disparities in economic, political, and social outcomes reflect distinct institutions. Institutions are invoked to explain why some countries are rich and others poor, some democratic and others dictatorial. But arguments of this sort gloss over the question of what institutions are, how they come about, and why they persist. They also fail to explain why institutions are influenced by the past, why it is that they can sometimes change, why they differ so much from society to society, and why it is hard to study them empirically and devise a policy aimed at altering them. This 2006 book seeks to overcome these problems, which have exercised economists, sociologists, political scientists, and a host of other researchers who use the social sciences to study history, law, and business administration. It presents a multi-disciplinary perspective to study endogenous institutions and their dynamics.

Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders

Abstract: This article examines the economic institution utilized during the eleventh century to facilitate complex trade characterized by asymmetric information and limited legal contract enforceability. The geniza documents are employed to present the "coalition," an economic institution based upon a reputation mechanism utilized by Mediterranean traders to confront the organizational problem associated with the exchange relations between merchants and their overseas agents. The theoretical framework explains many trade-related phenomena, especially why traders utilized specific forms of business association, and indicates the interrelations between social and economic institutions. M editerranean trade contributed much to the economic growth of southern Europe during the Middle Ages.' The spread of this trade depended, to a large extent, upon traders' ability to employ overseas agents or to let business associates function as overseas agents. The employment of overseas agents was vital during the Middle Ages, since goods were sold abroad only after being shipped to their destination.2 Since, absent contractual problems, a merchant can decrease cost by sending goods to an overseas agent rather than traveling with his goods, a large efficiency gain could potentially be achieved by employing overseas agents.3

Coordination, Commitment, and Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild

Abstract: We interpret historical evidence in light of a repeated-game model to conclude that merchant guilds emerged during the late medieval period to allow rulers of trade centers to commit to the security of alien merchants. The merchant guild developed the theoretically required attributes, secured merchants' property rights, and evolved in response to crises to extend the range of its effectiveness, contributing to the expansion of trade during the late medieval period. We elaborate on the relations between our theory and the monopoly theory of merchant guilds and contrast it with repeated-game theories that provide no role for formal organization.

Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation

Abstract: This paper presents evidence that "social capital" matters for measurable economic performance, using indicators of trust and civic norms from the World Values Surveys for a sample of 29 market economies. Memberships in formal groups—Putnam's measure of social capital—is not associated with trust or with improved economic performance. We find trust and civic norms are stronger in nations with higher and more equal incomes, with institutions that restrain predatory actions of chief executives, and with better-educated and ethnically homogeneous populations.

International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Abstract: Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

Social capital and economic development: Toward a theoretical synthesis and policy framework

Abstract: L'A. etudie le lien entre capital social et developpement economique. Il analyse la notion de capital social et souligne que cette notion caracterise un reseau de relations sociales jouissant d'une certaine autonomie et d'un relatif enracinement dans la vie sociale. Il examine la place du capital social dans le cadre des politiques de developpement economique et met en lumiere un certain nombre de contraintes et de possibilites inherentes aux dilemmes propres aux strategies de developpement «bas-haut» et «haut-bas». Il envisage de facon critique les theories et les politiques concues en matiere de developpement

Historical institutionalism in comparative politics

Abstract: This article provides an overview of recent developments in historical institutionalism. First, it reviews some distinctions that are commonly drawn between the ihistoricali and the irational choicei variants of institutionalism and shows that there are more points of tangency than typically assumed. However, differences remain in how scholars in the two traditions approach empirical problems. The contrast of rational choiceis emphasis on institutions as coordination mechanisms that generate or sustain equilibria versus historical institutionalismis emphasis on how institutions emerge from and are embedded in concrete temporal processes serves as the foundation for the second half of the essay, which assesses our progress in understanding institutional formation and change. Drawing on insights from recent historical institutional work on icritical juncturesi and on ipolicy feedbacks,i the article proposes a way of thinking about institutional evolution and path dependency that provides an alternative to equilibrium and other approaches that separate the analysis of institutional stability from that of institutional change.

The Economic Institutions of Capitalism

Abstract: The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray. Part of the problem is due to Smith’s "veil of ignorance": individuals unknowingly pursue society’s interest and, as a result, have no clue as to the macroeconomic effects of their actions: witness the Keynes and Leontief multipliers, the concept of value added, fiat money, Engel’s law and technical progress, to name but a few of the macrofoundations of microeconomics. A good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan’s economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker’s Rule. Very simply, the banks, whose lending determined deposits after Roosevelt, and were a public service became private enterprises whose deposits determine lending. These underlay the great moderation preceding 2006, and the subsequent crash.