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Coordination, Commitment, and Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild
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In this paper, the authors 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.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.read more
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Dynamics of Contention
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the role of contention in national disintegration and contention in the process of national mobilizations and their application in the context of national democratization, and conclude that "national disintegration, national disentanglement, and contention are the main causes of national disarray".
Journal ArticleDOI
A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action: Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1997
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss two major empirical findings that begin to show how individuals achieve results that are better than rational by building conditions where reciprocity, reputation, and trust can help to overcome the strong temptations of short-run self-interest.
Journal ArticleDOI
Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative historical analysis of the relations between culture and institutional structure is presented, showing the theoretical importance of culture in determining institutional structures, in leading to their path dependence, and in forestalling successful intersociety adoption of institutions.
Book
Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History
TL;DR: In this article, the transition from limited to open access orders in the social sciences has been discussed and a new research agenda for social sciences is presented. But the transition is not discussed in detail.
Book
Institutions and the path to the modern economy
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a multi-disciplinary perspective to study endogenous institutions and their dynamics, including the influence of the past, the ability of institutions to change, and the difficulty to study them empirically and devise a policy aimed at altering them.
References
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The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History
Douglass C. North,Robert Thomas +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, North and Thomas provide a unified explanation for the growth of Western Europe between 900 A. D. and 1700, providing a general theoretical framework for institutional change geared to the general reader.
Journal ArticleDOI
Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative historical analysis of the relations between culture and institutional structure is presented, showing the theoretical importance of culture in determining institutional structures, in leading to their path dependence, and in forestalling successful intersociety adoption of institutions.
Posted Content
Contract enforceability and economic institutions in early trade: The Maghribi Traders' Coalition
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an economic institution which enabled traders to benefit from employing overseas agents despite the commitment problem inherent in these relations. And they use a simple game-theoretical model to examine the interaction between social and economic institutions, the determinants of business practices, and the nature of the merchants' law.
Journal ArticleDOI
Noncooperative collusion under imperfect price information
Edward J. Green,Robert H. Porter +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the nature of cartel self-enforcement in the presence of demand uncertainty and present a model of a non-cooperatively supported cartel, and the aspects of industry structure which would make such a cartel viable.
Journal ArticleDOI
Social Norms and Community Enforcement
TL;DR: In this paper, the Folk Theorem in repeated games is extended to the situation where agents change their partners over time, where defection against one agent causes sanction by others, and how such a "social norm" is sustained by self-interested agents under various degrees of observability.