Do Institutions Cause Growth?

We revisit the debate over whether political institutions cause economic growth, or whether, alternatively, growth and human capital accumulation lead to institutional improvement. We find that most indicators of institutional quality used to establish the proposition that institutions cause growth are constructed to be conceptually unsuitable for that purpose. We also find that some of the instrumental variable techniques used in the literature are flawed. Basic OLS results, as well as a variety of additional evidence, suggest that (a) human capital is a more basic source of growth than are the institutions, (b) poor countries get out of poverty through good policies, often pursued by dictators, and (c) subsequently improve their political institutions.     

Exploring Utopia (Limited) with a Companion

For economic development, the central importance of commerciallaw, private enterprise and public infrastructure are undeniable.Yet trying to transplant such in situations when they are foreigncan add political turmoil to economic stagnation. Drawing onThe Elgar Companion to Development Studies (2006), this dilemmais explored with implications for the appropriate definitionof ‘institutions’; the meaning of property rightsand the mechanisms of conflict resolution.     

Where Did All the Growth Go? External Shocks, Social Conflict, and Growth Collapses

This article argues that domestic social conflicts are a key to understanding why growth rates lack persistence and why so many countries have experienced a growth collapse since the mid-1970s. It emphasizes, in particular, the manner in which social conflicts interact with external shock on the one hand, and the domestic institutions of conflict-management on the other. Econometric evidence provides support for this hypothesis. Countries that experienced the sharpest drops in growth after 1975 were those with divided societies (as measured by indicators of inequality, ethnic fragmentation, and the like) and with weak institutions of conflict management (proxied by indicators of the quality of governmental institutions, rule of law, democratic rights, and social safety nets).     

产权管制放松与制度绩效变迁——来自广东经济非均衡转轨的证据

过去大量的研究强调政策、区域、禀赋等对广东经济转轨绩效的影响,论文从产权管制放松的角度出发,构建了一个简单的博弈论模型,旨在分析广东政府放松对资源配置权利的管制对经济转轨产生的制度效应。研究发现,广东各级地方政府放松对资源配置权利的管制,大幅节约了租金耗散,并衍生出更多给予经济个体发挥比较优势的获利空间,扩展了市场范围,从而促进了地区经济均衡转轨。论文对于理解广东经济转轨问题提供了一个新的视角和框架,它尤其有助于揭示产权管制放松与经济绩效变迁二者之间的内在机理和制度逻辑。     

The Emergence of “Modern” Ownership Rights Rather than Property Rights

There are a number of analytical conundrums in the neo-classical theory of the emergence of private ownership rights, which is closely associated with Demsetz’s works. Reconsidering the internal logic of private ownership rights, the paper argues that, first, the emergence of “modern” private ownership rights should be the subject of analysis rather than ownership rights per se. Second, at least for some latecomer countries, modern ownership rights typically emerge when feudalistic multi-layered proprietary rights over land are abolished and replaced by ownership rights for the purpose of ensuring tax revenue, prompted by pressure from and/or the intrusion of a colonial power, rather than as an efficient response to changes in resource prices. Third, the socio-economic aspect of ownership rights that related to the manner of social formation tended to be concealed in the universal aspect of private property rights that focuses on the materialistic relation between a person and a thing. These arguments urge the bringing of social relations into the basic layer of analysis of ownership rights theory, as the original institutional economists such as Ely and Commons considered.     

Keynes’s Principle(s) of Effective Demand: Redefining His Revolution

Much of critical social science today argues that the oil crisis must be resolved by getting away from it: Alternative energy is the only answer to peak oil. Yet, recent massive and continuing oil discoveries in Africa have been offered as a potential stop-gap measure to simultaneously improve socio-economic conditions and enhance energy security on that continent, as well as to bridge global income inequalities, while supporting the energy needs of richer countries, especially at a time of continuing disquiet in the major oil producing centers in the world. Memories of plunder of African resources, formed by years of “resource curse,” however, erect dark clouds over the possibility of using oil to achieve the seemingly irreconcilable aims of oil benefit to both Africa and the rest. Australia finds itself at these crossroads: It has a looming oil crisis and an emergent relationship with Africa. In this paper, I argue for a non-determinist, research-led approach to resolve this imbroglio.     

Institutionalized pollution havens

A multiple-principal, multiple-agent lobby group model suggests that the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on environmental policies is conditional on the structure of host countries' political institutions such as the number of legislative units (veto players). The model also yields the novel concept of “aggregate honesty” which combines veto players and corruption. FDI raises environmental policy stringency where the number of legislative units are many (aggregate honesty is high), but reduces it where the legislative units are few (aggregate honesty is low). Our panel data evidence is fully consistent with these predictions. An additional contribution is to show the empirical importance of endogenizing environmental policy in Pollution Haven Hypothesis studies. Only when treated as endogenous does environmental policy have a significant negative effect on FDI.     

Adam Smith's “tolerable administration of justice” and the Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith argues that a country’s income depends on its labor productivity, which in turn hinges on the division of labor. But why are some countries able to take advantage of the division of labor and become rich, while others fail to do so and remain poor? Smith describes how the security of property rights, through a “tolerable administration of justice,” allows investment and exchange to take place, bringing about economic progress. Recent empirical work on economic development has supported Smith’s emphasis on a country’s political “institutions,” particularly the judiciary, in determining its national income.     

江苏区域经济差异对集体林权制度改革的影响分析

文章在江苏区域经济发展差异分析的基础上,指出林业产业发展的差异影响集体林权制度改革的重点,农民收入的差异影响集体林权制度改革的意愿,市场化水平影响集体林权制度改革的深度,并提出了江苏集体林权制度改革的差异化与协调推进的建议和措施。     

政府控制——影响转型社会经济绩效的重要因素

尽管一些文献在对中俄经济转轨的比较研究中,已经发现政府对于社会的控制能力的差异使两者经济绩效明显不同,但是,已有的文献并没有真正揭示出政府控制对于经济绩效产生影响的机制到底是什么。转型社会的经济发展过程是整个社会秩序与社会财产权制度的重建过程,在这一过程中．政府完全有责任通过沿袭计划经济时期对于社会的控制力在这样的重建中扮演积极的角色,政府控制也正是在这一过程中体现出其效率意义的。     

知识产权保护力度与经济发展关系研究

就中国实际的知识产权保护强度与中国经济发展水平适宜度来说。中国目前的知识产权保护水平相对于中国目前的经济发展水平而言已经足够高了。结合中国目前所处的技术等级水平，中国现阶段不宜过分提高知识产权保护强度。同时要将知识产权的保护重点放在“外观和实用新型”专利的保护上。     

The Way of the Social and Economic Development of China An Attempt of Historical and Synthetic Representation

The issue of social and economic development is an important part of theoretical and empirical research of the contemporary economy. China is an example of an economy which in a short period of time achieved success within this scope. Therefore it seems to be justified to draw the reader＇s attention to the factors and determinants which may be regarded as the key ones for the economy of China, both in the period of 1949-1978, namely, in the period of real socialism, and in the period after 1978, so-called ＂socialist market economy＂ to date. On the basis of an analysis of Polish and foreign reference sources and source materials, the author tried to trace both similarities and differences in China＇s economic development over those two periods, first of all paying attention to the Chinese authorities＇ pragmatism of governing in the other period, accompanied by limiting ideological influences. Maintaining the socialist system, in that period China worked out its own, specific principles, and rules of internal activities and activities in the international arena, which enabled to it the creation of a model, especially for developing countries, the system of economic planning and programming, its constant modernization during the implementation of economic tasks, with the consideration given to changing conditionings in the world economy. It was pointed out that with maintaining the laboriousness of the Chinese and their loyalty to authority, they make up China＇s economic power. The aim of the article is to pay special attention to the circumstances, phenomena, conditionings, and factors which occurred on the way to the social and economic development of China, which enabled it to achieve the economic success in a relatively short period of time. This success can be expressed by such indicators as for instance the poverty rate, the unemployment rate, gross domestic product, the value of export, and the value of foreign direct investment as well as other factors.