Some theoretical problems of institutional economic history

Scandinavian Economic History Review

Volumn 46, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 5-31

  Gustafsson, Bo ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC HISTORY; INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK; PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT; THEORETICAL STUDY;

EID: 0032469197     PISSN: 03585522     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03585522.1998.10414738     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. See Lazonick, W., Business Organization and the Myth of the Market Economy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP 1991.
2. North, Douglass C., The sources of productivity growth in Ocean shipping, 1600-1850, The Reinterpretation of American Economic History, Eds. R. W. Fogel and S. L. Engerman. New York: Harper & Row 1971.
3. North, Douglass C. & Thomas, Robert Paul, The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1973.
4. North, Douglass C., Structure and Change in Economic History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1981.
5. North, Douglass C., Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1990.
6. Empirical Studies in Institutional Change, Eds. Lee J. Alston, Thrainn Eggertsson and Douglass C. North. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1996.
7. The argument was, as far as I know, first advanced by Simon Kuznets, for instance in his Six Lectures, on Economic Growth. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP 1956.
8. See, for instance, Smith's frank description of the propertied and propertyless classes in The Wealth of Nations: "Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality. For one rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the poor The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour, civil government is not necessary". Wealth of Nations (1776). New York: The Modern Library 1937, 670. The logical connection between property-owning on the one hand and law and order on the other hand was so self-evident that some representatives of classical political economy, quite logically, suggested that only property owners should pay taxes, since government was there only to protect their property!
9. North & Thomas, The Rise of the Western World, 2.
10. For a good overview, see Berman, Harold J., Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP 1983.
11. Frank, R. H., Passions within Reason: the strategic role of human emotions. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. 1988.
12. Bhaduri, A., Economic Power and Efficiency in Traditional Agriculture, Power and Economic Institutions: Reinterpretations in Economic History, Ed. Bo Gustafsson. Alderhot: Edward Elgar 1991, 56.
13. See North & Thomas, The Rise of the Western World, compared with North, Structure and Change in Economic History, and North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance.
14. See North & Thomas, The Rise of the Western World, compared with North, Structure and Change in Economic History, and North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance.
15. See North & Thomas, The Rise of the Western World, compared with North, Structure and Change in Economic History, and North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance.
16. Vividly described by Kula, Witold, Measure and Man. Princeton: Princeton UP 1986. Kula clearly shows that lowering transaction costs was a conflict-ridden process in all kinds of measurements.
17. Knight, Jack, Institutions and Social Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1992.
18. See Edgerton, Rules, Exceptions and Social Order.
19. Once again, the literature is extensive. One example is Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Common Action. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1990.
20. Persson, T. & Tabellini, G., Growth, Distribution and Politics. European Economics Review, April 1992:36.
21. See Markets and Democracy: Participation, authority and efficiency, Eds. Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis and Bo Gustafsson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1993.
22. Stone, Andrew & Levy, Brian & Paredes, Ricardo, Public Institutions and private transactions: a comparative analysis of the legal and regulatory environment for business transactions in Brazil and Chile, Empirical Studies in Institutional Change, Eds. Lee J. Alston, Thrainn Eggertsson and Douglass C. North. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1996.
23. North, Douglass C., Institutions and Credible Commitments, Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, vol. 149, 1993:1, 12.
24. See Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations (1776). New York: Modern Library 1937, 670.
25. Ely, Richard T., Property and Contract in their Relation to the Distribution of Wealth, vol. 1. London: Macmillan 1914, 96.
26. Mazzaoui, Maureen Fennell, The Italian Cotton Industry in the Later Middle Ages, 1100-1600. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1981, 138-161.
27. Israel, Jonathan I., The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477-1806. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1995, esp. chaps 2, 6 and 36.
28. See for instance, Elbaum, Bernard & Lazonick, William, The Decline of the British Economy. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1986.
29. See the recent book, The Mosaic of Economic Growth, Eds Ralph Landau, Timothy Taylor and Gavin Wright. Stanford: Stanford UP 1996, especially contributions by Lawrence J. Lau, Henry S. Rowen, John B. Taylor and Masahiko Aoki.
30. Ullmann - Margalit, Edna, The Emergence of Norms. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977.
31. Coleman, James S., Norm-Generating Structures, The Limits of Rationality, Eds. Karen Schweers-Cook and Margaret Levi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1990, 250
32. et seq. See also Coleman, James S., Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, chaps 10, 11.
33. For an overview, see Vromen, Jack J., Economic Evolution: an enquiry into the foundations of new institutional economics. London: Routledge 1995.
34. Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 385.
35. Berman, Law and Revolution, 334-336.
36. North, Douglass C. &, Weingast, Barry R., Constitutions and Commitments: the evolution of institutions governing public choice in seventeenth-century England, Empirical Studies in Institutional Change, Eds. Lee J. Alston, Thrainn Eggertsson and Douglass C. North. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1996, 134-165.
37. North & Weingast, Constitutions and Commitments, 136.