Culture, Institutions, and Economic Development

Culture, Institutions, and Economic Development PDF Author: Michael Keating
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Regions are increasingly recognised as a key aspect of economic change in Europe, not merely as geographic spaces but also as social systems. Their history, culture, institutions and patterns of leadership mould the way in which they adapt to European and global competitive challenges. This book reviews the debate surrounding the construction of regions and presents eight case studies to illustrate how they are shaped and reshaped in a variety of different ways. The authors find that while some regions exhibit common patterns, there are significant variations, indicating that there is no definitive model of regional development. This book offers a systematic comparison of eight distinct regions and stateless nations, each with its own historical identity, but which is constantly being rebuilt in changing economic and political conditions. Avoiding economic or cultural determinism, the authors show how region-builders can shape their own responses to global challenges to produce models of development reflecting differing understandings and social compromises. Culture, Institutions and Economic Development will be warmly welcomed by academics within the fields of regional studies, European studies and political science.

Culture, Institutions, and Economic Development

Culture, Institutions, and Economic Development PDF Author: Michael Keating
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
Regions are increasingly recognised as a key aspect of economic change in Europe, not merely as geographic spaces but also as social systems. Their history, culture, institutions and patterns of leadership mould the way in which they adapt to European and global competitive challenges. This book reviews the debate surrounding the construction of regions and presents eight case studies to illustrate how they are shaped and reshaped in a variety of different ways. The authors find that while some regions exhibit common patterns, there are significant variations, indicating that there is no definitive model of regional development. This book offers a systematic comparison of eight distinct regions and stateless nations, each with its own historical identity, but which is constantly being rebuilt in changing economic and political conditions. Avoiding economic or cultural determinism, the authors show how region-builders can shape their own responses to global challenges to produce models of development reflecting differing understandings and social compromises. Culture, Institutions and Economic Development will be warmly welcomed by academics within the fields of regional studies, European studies and political science.

Culture, Institutions, and Development

Culture, Institutions, and Development PDF Author: Jean-Philippe Platteau
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136912096
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
Does culture matter? This question has taken on added significance since fundamentalist revivalism has recently gained ground in different parts of the world. The old controversy between Max Weber and Karl Marx, which centres around the extent to which cultural factors such as social norms and values affect economic growth is of critical importance, particularly because of its policy implications. Indeed, if culture is not an autonomous factor susceptible to influencing economic realities, it should not matter and public authorities can dispense with thinking about cultural interventions. On the other hand, if culture does have a real impact, the question arises as to whether it is conducive or detrimental to economic growth, political liberalization, and the emancipation of individuals among other things. Culture, Institutions, and Development addresses this debate at a concrete level by looking at five important issues: the role of tradition and its influence on development; the role of religion, with special reference to Middle Eastern countries; the role of family, kinship, and ethnic ties in the process of development; the relationship between culture and entrepreneurship; and the relationship between culture and poverty. This collection offers a nuanced view that neither denies nor exaggerates the role of cultural factors in explaining relative growth performances across countries. Instead, the contributors focus on the dynamic, two-way relationship between culture and development in a way that stresses policy stakes and the value of multidisciplinary collaboration between economists, historians and other social scientists. This book will be of interest to postgraduates and researchers in all the social sciences, as well as to professionals working in national development agencies, international organisations, and Non-Governmental Organisations.

The Handbook of Economic Development and Institutions

The Handbook of Economic Development and Institutions PDF Author: Jean-Marie Baland
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691192014
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 786

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Book Description
The definitive reference on the most current economics of development and institutions The essential role that institutions play in understanding economic development has long been recognized across the social sciences, including in economics. Academic and policy interest in this subject has never been higher. The Handbook of Economic Development and Institutions is the first to bring together in one single volume the most cutting-edge work in this area by the best-known international economists. The volume’s editors, themselves leading scholars in the discipline, provide a comprehensive introduction, and the stellar contributors offer up-to-date analysis into institutional change and its interactions with the dynamics of economic development. This book focuses on three critical issues: the definitions of institutions in order to argue for a causal link to development, the complex interplay between formal and informal institutions, and the evolution and coevolution of institutions and their interactions with the political economy of development. Topics examined include the relationship between institutions and growth, educational systems, the role of the media, and the intersection between traditional systems of patronage and political institutions. Each chapter—covering the frontier research in its area and pointing to new areas of research—is the product of extensive workshopping on the part of the contributors. The definitive reference work on this topic, The Handbook of Economic Development and Institutions will be essential for academics, researchers, and professionals working in the field.

The Long Divergence

The Long Divergence PDF Author: Timur Kuran
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400836018
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
How religious barriers stalled capitalism in the Middle East In the year 1000, the economy of the Middle East was at least as advanced as that of Europe. But by 1800, the region had fallen dramatically behind—in living standards, technology, and economic institutions. In short, the Middle East had failed to modernize economically as the West surged ahead. What caused this long divergence? And why does the Middle East remain drastically underdeveloped compared to the West? In The Long Divergence, one of the world's leading experts on Islamic economic institutions and the economy of the Middle East provides a new answer to these long-debated questions. Timur Kuran argues that what slowed the economic development of the Middle East was not colonialism or geography, still less Muslim attitudes or some incompatibility between Islam and capitalism. Rather, starting around the tenth century, Islamic legal institutions, which had benefitted the Middle Eastern economy in the early centuries of Islam, began to act as a drag on development by slowing or blocking the emergence of central features of modern economic life—including private capital accumulation, corporations, large-scale production, and impersonal exchange. By the nineteenth century, modern economic institutions began to be transplanted to the Middle East, but its economy has not caught up. And there is no quick fix today. Low trust, rampant corruption, and weak civil societies—all characteristic of the region's economies today and all legacies of its economic history—will take generations to overcome. The Long Divergence opens up a frank and honest debate on a crucial issue that even some of the most ardent secularists in the Muslim world have hesitated to discuss.

Catching Up to America

Catching Up to America PDF Author: Tian Zhu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316510611
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Using global comparative data, this book shows why culture, not institutions or policies, is the difference-maker behind China's rapid rise.

A Culture of Growth

A Culture of Growth PDF Author: Joel Mokyr
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691180962
Category : BUSINESS and ECONOMICS
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Why Enlightenment culture sparked the Industrial Revolution During the late eighteenth century, innovations in Europe triggered the Industrial Revolution and the sustained economic progress that spread across the globe. While much has been made of the details of the Industrial Revolution, what remains a mystery is why it took place at all. Why did this revolution begin in the West and not elsewhere, and why did it continue, leading to today's unprecedented prosperity? In this groundbreaking book, celebrated economic historian Joel Mokyr argues that a culture of growth specific to early modern Europe and the European Enlightenment laid the foundations for the scientific advances and pioneering inventions that would instigate explosive technological and economic development. Bringing together economics, the history of science and technology, and models of cultural evolution, Mokyr demonstrates that culture--the beliefs, values, and preferences in society that are capable of changing behavior--was a deciding factor in societal transformations. Mokyr looks at the period 1500-1700 to show that a politically fragmented Europe fostered a competitive "market for ideas" and a willingness to investigate the secrets of nature. At the same time, a transnational community of brilliant thinkers known as the "Republic of Letters" freely circulated and distributed ideas and writings. This political fragmentation and the supportive intellectual environment explain how the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe but not China, despite similar levels of technology and intellectual activity. In Europe, heterodox and creative thinkers could find sanctuary in other countries and spread their thinking across borders. In contrast, China's version of the Enlightenment remained controlled by the ruling elite. Combining ideas from economics and cultural evolution, A Culture of Growth provides startling reasons for why the foundations of our modern economy were laid in the mere two centuries between Columbus and Newton.

Capitalism, Institutions, and Economic Development

Capitalism, Institutions, and Economic Development PDF Author: Michael G. Heller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135214980
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 629

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Book Description
Based on a timely reassessment of the classic arguments of Weber, Schumpeter, Hayek, Popper, and Parsons, this book reconceptualizes actually-existing capitalism. It proposes capitalism as an impersonal procedural solution to the problems of spontaneously coordinating public institutions that enable durable market-based wealth generation and social order. Few countries have achieved this. A novel contribution of the book is that it identifies a practical sequence of economic and institutional shortcuts to real capitalism. The book challenges current orthodoxies about varieties of capitalism and relativist recipes for economic growth, and it criticizes culturalist and incrementalist viewpoints in institutional economics. It calls on the social sciences to help in constructing dynamic and prosperous open societies of the twenty-first century by reclaiming older ideas of ‘social economics’. Better and faster solutions will emphasize crisis-induced change, rational leadership, ideological persuasion, institutional engineering, rules-based market freedom, and the universalistic formal-procedural impersonality of optimal regulatory systems.

Institutions, Trade, and Growth

Institutions, Trade, and Growth PDF Author: David Dollar
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Economic development
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description
Several recent papers have attempted to identify the partial effects of trade integration and institutional quality on long-run growth using the geographical determinants of trade and the historical determinants of institutions as instruments. The authors show that many of the specifications in these papers are weakly identified despite the apparently good performance of the instruments in first-stage regressions. Consequently, they argue that the cross-country variation in institutions, trade, and their geographical and historical determinants is not very informative about the partial effects of these variables on long-run growth.

Institutions, Property Rights, and Economic Growth

Institutions, Property Rights, and Economic Growth PDF Author: Sebastian Galiani
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139916742
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
This volume showcases the impact of the work of Douglass North, winner of the Nobel Prize and father of the field of new institutional economics. Leading scholars contribute to a substantive discussion that best illustrates the broad reach and depth of Professor North's work. The volume speaks concisely about his legacy across multiple social sciences disciplines, specifically on scholarship pertaining to the understanding of property rights, the institutions that support the system of property rights, and economic growth.

Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance

Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance PDF Author: Douglass C. North
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521397346
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
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.