Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade

by Avner Greif

• ISBN13: 9780521671347
• ISBN10: 0521671345
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

It is widely believed that current disparities in economic, political, and social outcomes reflect distinct institutions. Institutions are invoked to explain why some countries are rich and others poor, some democratic and others dictatorial. But arguments of this sort gloss over the question of what institutions are, how they come about, and why they persist. This book seeks to overcome these problems, which have exercised economists, sociologists, political scientists, and a host of other researchers who use the social sciences to study history, law, and business administration.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	xi
Preface	xiii
Preliminaries	1	(54)
Introduction	3	(26)
Institutions and Transactions	29	(26)
Institutions as Systems in Equilibria	55	(98)
Private-Order Contract Enforcement Institutions: The Maghribi Traders' Coalition	58	(33)
Securing Property Rights from the Grabbing Hand of the State: The Merchant Guild	91	(33)
Endogenous Institutions and Game-Theoretic Analysis	124	(29)
Institutional Dynamics as a Historical Process	153	(152)
A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change	158	(29)
Institutional Trajectories: How Past Institutions Affect Current Ones	187	(30)
Building a State: Genoa's Rise and Fall	217	(52)
On the Origin of Distinct Institutional Trajectories: Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society	269	(36)
The Empirical Method of Comparative and Historical Institutional Analysis	305	(72)
The Institutional Foundations of Impersonal Exchange	309	(41)
Interactive, Context-Specific Analysis	350	(27)
Concluding Comments	377	(76)
Institutions, History, and Development	379	(28)
Appendixes
A Primer in Game Theory	407	(14)
Is Homo Sociologicus Strategic?	421	(7)
The Role of Theory: Reputation-Based Private-Order Institutions	428	(25)
References	453	(36)
Index	489