discussion paper
FS I 99 - 309
Institutional Complementarity
and Diversity of Social Systems
of Innovation and Production
Bruno Amable*
September 1999
ISSN Nr. 1011-9523
*
Université de Lille II & CEPREMAP
The Author wishes to thank Bob Hancké for his comments. Discussions with
Bénédicte Reynaud and Jérôme Bourdieu when this paper was being written have
been very helpful. An earlier version (with a slightly different title) was presented at
the workshop ‘Macroéconomie et institutions’, Paris La Sorbonne, 23-24 October
1998. The author wishes to thank the workshop participants for their comments,
especially Pascal Petit and David Soskice. The usual caveats apply.
ZITIERWEISE/CITATION
Bruno Amable
Institutional Complementarity and Diversity
of Social Systems of Innovation and Production
Discussion Paper FS I 99 -309
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung 1999
Forschungsschwerpunkt: Research Area:
Arbeitsmarkt und Labour Market and
Beschäftigung Employment
Abteilung: Research Unit:
Wirtschaftswandel und Economic Change and
Beschäftigung Employment
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung
Reichpietschufer 50
D-10785 Berlin
e-mail: wzb@wz-berlin.de
Internet: http://www.wz-berlin.de
Abstract
This article proposes an institutional analysis of modern capitalist economies. It
argues that the institutional dimension is crucial if one wants to account for the co-
existence of different types of modern developed economies, characterised by
substantially different institutional structures. It explains why no generalised pattern
of convergence towards the same economic model should be expected, in spite of
‘globalisation’. An institutional analysis of modern economies, or social systems of
innovation and production, can be made using the concepts of complementarity and
hierarchy of institutions. Institutional arrangements are complementary to each other
and thus define the coherence as well as the potential for evolution of the various
economies. The hierarchy of institution expresses which part of the institutional
drives the others and is helpful for understanding historical evolutions. The paper
proposes a classification of developed economies and draws some conclusions
regarding the usefulness of the concepts of complementarity and hierarchy of
institutions for economic policy.
Zusammenfassung
Der vorliegende Beitrag
bietet eine Analyse der Institutionen moderner
kapitalistischer Volkswirtschaften. Der institutionellen Dimension wird entscheidende
Bedeutung beigemessen, wenn es darum geht, die Koexistenz verschiedener
kapitalistischer Wirtschaftsmodelle mit sehr unterschiedlichen institutionellen
Strukturen zu begründen. Es wird erläutert, warum trotz „Globalisierung„ kein
einheitliches Konvergenzmuster zu erwarten ist. Eine institutionelle Analyse
moderner Volkswirtschaften, zum Beispiel der sozialen Innovations- und
Produktionssysteme, kann mit Hilfe der Konzepte der Komplementarität und
Hierarchie von Institutionen erfolgen. Institutionelle Strukturen sind komplementär
und definieren somit die Kohärenz sowie das Entwicklungspotential der betreffenden
Volkswirtschaften. Die institutionelle Hierarchie beschreibt, welches Glied des
Institutionengefüges die anderen steuert, und trägt so zum Verständnis historischer
Entwicklungen bei. Der vorliegende Beitrag bietet eine Klassifizierung entwickelter
Volkswirtschaften und zieht einige Schlußfolgerungen im Hinblick auf die
Nützlichkeit der Begriffe Komplementarität und Hierarchie von Institutionen für die
Wirtschaftspolitik.
Table of Contents
page
1. Introduction
..............................................................................1
2. Do institutions ‘matter’?
.........................................................3
3. The interaction of institutions: institutional structures
.......6
4. Hierarchy of institutions and a tentative taxonomy
of institutional analyses
..............................................................11
4.1. General-purpose approaches..................................................12
4.2. Intermediate institutional approaches......................................14
5. A variety of Social Systems of Innovation
and Production (SSIP)
...........................................................16
5.1. The market-based SSIP ..........................................................17
5.2. The social-democratic SSIP ....................................................17
5.3. The meso-corporatist SSIP .....................................................17
5.4. The public SSIP.......................................................................18
6. Conclusion
.............................................................................20
References
.....................................................................................23
Figures and Tables
............................................................................26
Figure 1 :
Why do institutions shape the growth regime
Figure 2:
A political economy view of institutions
Figure 3:
A stylised representation of institutional complementarity
Table 1.
Institutions and organisations influence endogenous growth
Table 2.
Components of an institutional economic analysis
Table 3.
Institutional complementarity in various institutionalist approaches
Table 4.
Four types of Social Systems of Innovation and Production
Table 5.
The dynamics of SSIP
