Imperfect institutions : possibilities and limits of reform / Thrainn Eggertsson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Þráinn Eggertsson, 1941-

Contributor:

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Series:

Economics, cognition, and society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Institutional economics.

Right of property.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vi, 264 pages).

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2005.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

The emergence of New Institutional Economics toward the end of the twentieth century profoundly changed our ideas about the organization of economic systems and their social and political foundations. Imperfect Institutions explores recent developments in this field and pushes the discussion forward by allowing for incomplete knowledge of social systems and unexpected system dynamics and, above all, by focusing explicitly on institutional policy. Empirical studies extending from Africa to Iceland are cited in support of the theoretical argument.

In Imperfect Institutions Thrainn Eggertsson extends his attempt to integrate and develop the new field that began with his acclaimed Economic Behavior and Institutions (1990), which has been translated into six languages. This latest work analyzes why institutions that create relative economic backwardness emerge and persist and considers the possibilities of limits of institutional reform.

Contents:

Imperfect institutions and growth theory in modern economics

Barriers to growth : institutions and social technologies

Competing social models

Stable poverty and unstable growth

The political logic of bad economics

Inefficient social norms

Why Iceland starved

Applying social technologies : lessons from the old theory of economic policy

Degrees of freedom in institutional reform

Eluding poverty traps, escaping history

Minimal property rights and legal transplants.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [233]-253) and indexes.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

9780472023547

Publisher Number:

10.3998/mpub.91126

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.