Showing papers by "Douglass C. North published in 2005"

Institutions and the Performance of Economies over Time

Abstract: The discipline of economics is made up of a static body of theory that explores the efficiency of resource allocation at an instant of time and under the restrictive assumptions of frictionless markets. Recent research has explored the nature of the frictions by incorporating institutions, transaction costs, and political economy into economic analysis thereby providing the theory with a bridge to the real world of real economies. But the first constraint of static analysis severely hinders our ability to analyze and improve the performance of economies in a world of continuous change. And, in fact, the employment of static theory as a source of policy recommendation in a setting of dynamic change is a prescription for the policies producing unanticipated and undesirable results. In this essay I intend to provide an approach to the study of the process of economic change. There is still much that we do not understand about the process but this essay provides an analytical framework that does, I believe, highlight the problems that must be confronted in order to understand and improve economic performance. I first describe the intentional nature of human interaction in aworld of pervasive uncertainty (2) before going on to describe the process of economic change (3). I conclude with drawing some implications from this approach to the process of change which highlight the lacunae in our understanding of this process (4).

Institutions and the process of economic change

Abstract: La theorie economique neoclassique se preoccupe de l'affectation des ressources dans les economies developpees. Toutefois, lorsque nous envisageons le processus du changement economique dans un contexte mondial, nous devons elargir notre champ d'observation. Pour ce faire, il faut que nous comprenions le role des institutions dans la structuration des interactions humaines -un prealable a la comprehension de la dynamique du changement economique. Nous en savons long sur ce qui mene a un developpement couronne de succes. Mais nous savons tres peu de chose sur la maniere de faire qui entrainerait la comprehension du processus du changement economique. D'abord, je traiterai brievement des sources de la croissance economique, ce qui me permettra par la suite d'explorer le processus du changement economique.

Wider Perspectives on Global Development

Abstract: Interestingly, wider perspectives on global development that you really wait for now is coming. It's significant to wait for the representative and beneficial books to read. Every book that is provided in better way and utterance will be expected by many peoples. Even you are a good reader or not, feeling to read this book will always appear when you find it. But, when you feel hard to find it as yours, what to do? Borrow to your friends and don't know when to give back it to her or him.

Introduction to Understanding the Process of Economic Change

Abstract: In this landmark work, a Nobel Prize-winning economist develops a new way of understanding the process by which economies change. Douglass North inspired a revolution in economic history a generation ago by demonstrating that economic performance is determined largely by the kind and quality of institutions that support markets. As he showed in two now classic books that inspired the New Institutional Economics (today a subfield of economics), property rights and transaction costs are fundamental determinants. Here, North explains how different societies arrive at the institutional infrastructure that greatly determines their economic trajectories. North argues that economic change depends largely on "adaptive efficiency," a society’s effectiveness in creating institutions that are productive, stable, fair, and broadly accepted--and, importantly, flexible enough to be changed or replaced in response to political and economic feedback. While adhering to his earlier definition of institutions as the formal and informal rules that constrain human economic behavior, he extends his analysis to explore the deeper determinants of how these rules evolve and how economies change. Drawing on recent work by psychologists, he identifies intentionality as the crucial variable and proceeds to demonstrate how intentionality emerges as the product of social learning and how it then shapes the economy's institutional foundations and thus its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. Understanding the Process of Economic Change accounts not only for past institutional change but also for the diverse performance of present-day economies. This major work is therefore also an essential guide to improving the performance of developing countries.

Introduction to Understanding the Process of Economic Change

Abstract: In this landmark work, a Nobel Prize-winning economist develops a new way of understanding the process by which economies change. Douglass North inspired a revolution in economic history a generation ago by demonstrating that economic performance is determined largely by the kind and quality of institutions that support markets. As he showed in two now classic books that inspired the New Institutional Economics (today a subfield of economics), property rights and transaction costs are fundamental determinants. Here, North explains how different societies arrive at the institutional infrastructure that greatly determines their economic trajectories. North argues that economic change depends largely on "adaptive efficiency," a society’s effectiveness in creating institutions that are productive, stable, fair, and broadly accepted--and, importantly, flexible enough to be changed or replaced in response to political and economic feedback. While adhering to his earlier definition of institutions as the formal and informal rules that constrain human economic behavior, he extends his analysis to explore the deeper determinants of how these rules evolve and how economies change. Drawing on recent work by psychologists, he identifies intentionality as the crucial variable and proceeds to demonstrate how intentionality emerges as the product of social learning and how it then shapes the economy's institutional foundations and thus its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. Understanding the Process of Economic Change accounts not only for past institutional change but also for the diverse performance of present-day economies. This major work is therefore also an essential guide to improving the performance of developing countries.

Lernen, Institutionen und Wirtschaftsleistung

Abstract: This article provides a broad overview of the interplay among cognition, be- lief systems and institutions, eshing out a position best characterized as ,cognitive institutionalism'. We argue that a deeper understanding of institutions' emergence, their working properties and their eect on economic performance should start with the analysis of cognitive processes. Exploring the nature of individual and collective learning the article suggests that the issue is not whether agents are perfectly or boun- dedly rational, but rather how human beings actually reason and choose. We also show how a full treatment of the phenomenon of path dependence should look like; there is a path dependence at the cognitive level, at the institutional level and at the economic level and there are links among them.