This publication discusses the impact of institutions on economic development and the determinants that shape institutional quality, using a new institutional economics (NIE) model based on a multidisciplinary approach to understanding issues including growth, efficiency and income distribution. Using the experience of Argentina under the Menem government as a case study, a methodology is developed and applied to test theoretical hypotheses regarding the concept of institutional quality and how delineation between economic and political institutions work in practice. It also considers systems of democracy and autocracy, and the impact of traditional, legal and cultural frameworks on institutional efficiency.

An analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies is developed in this analysis of economic structures.

In a neoclassical world the existence of non-zero transaction costs, nonconvex technologies, public goods and so on creates inefficiencies which can be dealt with by various institutions. But, institutions can create inefficiencies of their own. This volume addresses the issue of efficiency and institutions from different angles. First, the efficiency of modern welfare states is analyzed on a general level where topics like social justice, redistribution and rent seeking are studied in an environment of pressure groups and self-interested politicians (papers by Streit, Schlieper, WickstrAm). Second, several papers deal with more specific issues like intergenerational transfers in a social insurance system, the efficiency of law, and contractual arrangements in the labor market (Witt, Rowley and Brough, Monissen and Wenger). Third, allocation procedures for nonexclusive public goods are analyzed (GA1/4th and Hellwig, Pethig).

This publication discusses the impact of institutions on economic development and the determinants that shape institutional quality, using a new institutional economics (NIE) model based on a multidisciplinary approach to understanding issues including growth, efficiency and income distribution. Using the experience of Argentina under the Menem government as a case study, a methodology is developed and applied to test theoretical hypotheses regarding the concept of institutional quality and how delineation between economic and political institutions work in practice. It also considers systems of democracy and autocracy, and the impact of traditional, legal and cultural frameworks on institutional efficiency.

In a neoclassical world the existence of non-zero transaction costs, nonconvex technologies, public goods and so on creates inefficiencies which can be dealt with by various institutions. But, institutions can create inefficiencies of their own. This volume addresses the issue of efficiency and institutions from different angles. First, the efficiency of modern welfare states is analyzed on a general level where topics like social justice, redistribution and rent seeking are studied in an environment of pressure groups and self-interested politicians (papers by Streit, Schlieper, WickstrAm). Second, several papers deal with more specific issues like intergenerational transfers in a social insurance system, the efficiency of law, and contractual arrangements in the labor market (Witt, Rowley and Brough, Monissen and Wenger). Third, allocation procedures for nonexclusive public goods are analyzed (GA1/4th and Hellwig, Pethig).

Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional change. Institutions create the incentive structure in an economy, and organisations will be created to take advantage of the opportunities provided within a given institutional framework. North argues that the kinds of skills and knowledge fostered by the structure of an economy will shape the direction of change and gradually alter the institutional framework. He then explains how institutional development may lead to a path-dependent pattern of development. In the final part of the book, North explains the implications of this analysis for economic theory and economic history. He indicates how institutional analysis must be incorporated into neo-classical theory and explores the potential for the construction of a dynamic theory of long-term economic change. Douglass C. North is Director of the Center of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and History at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a past president of the Economic History Association and Western Economics Association and a Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written over sixty articles for a variety of journals and is the author of The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (CUP, 1973, with R.P. Thomas) and Structure and Change in Economic History (Norton, 1981). Professor North is included in Great Economists Since Keynes edited by M. Blaug (CUP, 1988 paperback ed.)