Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Series editors' preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- A note on the economics of institutions
- Empirical work in institutional economics: an overview
- 1 Toward an understanding of property rights
- Economic variables and the development of the law: the case of western mineral rights
- 2 Impediments to institutional change in the former Soviet system
- Why economic reforms fail in the Soviet system: a property rights–based approach
- 3 Transaction costs and economic development
- Public institutions and private transactions: a comparative analysis of the legal and regulatory environment for business transactions in Brazil and Chile
- 4 The evolution of modern institutions of growth
- Constitutions and commitment: the evolution of institutions governing public choice in seventeenth-century England
- 5 Regulation in a dynamic setting
- The political economy of controls: American sugar
- 6 Price controls, property rights, and institutional change
- Roofs or stars: the stated intents and actual effects of a rents ordinance
- 7 Regulating natural resources: the evolution of perverse property rights
- Legally induced technical regress in the Washington salmon fishery
- 8 The politics of institutional change in a representative democracy
- A political theory of the origin of property rights: airport slots
- 9 The economics and politics of institutional change
- Paternalism in agricultural labor contracts in the U.S. South: implications for the growth of the welfare state
- Epilogue: economic performance through time
- Author index
- Subject index
- POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INSTITUTIONS AND DECISIONS
Series editors' preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Series editors' preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- A note on the economics of institutions
- Empirical work in institutional economics: an overview
- 1 Toward an understanding of property rights
- Economic variables and the development of the law: the case of western mineral rights
- 2 Impediments to institutional change in the former Soviet system
- Why economic reforms fail in the Soviet system: a property rights–based approach
- 3 Transaction costs and economic development
- Public institutions and private transactions: a comparative analysis of the legal and regulatory environment for business transactions in Brazil and Chile
- 4 The evolution of modern institutions of growth
- Constitutions and commitment: the evolution of institutions governing public choice in seventeenth-century England
- 5 Regulation in a dynamic setting
- The political economy of controls: American sugar
- 6 Price controls, property rights, and institutional change
- Roofs or stars: the stated intents and actual effects of a rents ordinance
- 7 Regulating natural resources: the evolution of perverse property rights
- Legally induced technical regress in the Washington salmon fishery
- 8 The politics of institutional change in a representative democracy
- A political theory of the origin of property rights: airport slots
- 9 The economics and politics of institutional change
- Paternalism in agricultural labor contracts in the U.S. South: implications for the growth of the welfare state
- Epilogue: economic performance through time
- Author index
- Subject index
- POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INSTITUTIONS AND DECISIONS
Summary
The Cambridge Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions series is built around attempts to answer two central questions: How do institutions evolve in response to individual incentives, strategies, and choices, and how do institutions affect the performance of political and economic systems? The scope of the series is comparative and historical rather than international or specifically American, and the focus is positive rather than normative.
The nine path-breaking empirical studies in this volume capture the state of an important field, institutional analysis, in rapid transition. Institutional analysis focuses directly on the connection between institutions and economic performance. It emphasizes incomplete information and the costs of measuring performance and enforcing property rights. Unlike other books on property rights that deal specifically with particular political problems (e.g., the commons), regions (e.g., the developing world), or types of property (e.g., intellectual), this volume is concerned with property rights in general. It stresses the importance of history and the significance of adjustments on unanticipated margins. Several chapters document the creation of new political institutions, public policies, and forms of contract, all important kinds of institutional change, while the remainder explain the costs of extant regulations. The result is an impressive array of studies showing what we know about the origins and effects of institutions, which create the incentive structures in societies.
Like the earlier collections in this series, Perspectives on Positive Political Economy and Modern Political Economy, this one addresses both organizational development and the interaction between existing institutions and outcomes.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Empirical Studies in Institutional Change , pp. ix - xPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996