THE ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS IN THE REVIVAL OF TRADE: THE LAW MERCHANT, PRIVATE JUDGES, AND THE CHAMPAGNE FAIRS

A good reputation can be an effective bond for honest behavior in a community of traders if members of the community know how others have behaved in the past – even if any particular pair of traders meets only infrequently. In a large community, it would be impossibly costly for traders to be perfectly informed about each other's behavior, but there exist institutions that can restore the effectiveness of a reputation system using much less extensive information. The system of judges used to enforce commercial law before the rise of the state was such an institution, and it successfully encouraged merchants (1) to behave honestly, (2) to impose sanctions on violators, (3) to become adequately informed about how others had behaved, (4) to provide evidence against violators of the code, and (5) to pay any judgments assessed against them, even though each of these behaviors might be personally costly.     

Exposing the neoclassical fallacy: McCloskey on ideas and the great enrichment

In this paper, I discuss Deirdre McCloskey’s argument that ‘ideas, not capital or institutions,’ were the cause of the ‘great enrichment,’ the spectacular growth of the world economy since 1800. I disagree that the ideas of liberty and equality alone caused the great enrichment but agree that these ideas were central and necessary for it. Most theorists of development and economic history fail to recognise the importance of these ideas despite implicitly assuming them in what I call the ‘neoclassical fallacy.’ I also extend McCloskey’s views to include a greater understanding of liberty and equality through their implementation, which necessarily involves institutions that provide political officials with incentives to honour these ideas in practice. Ideas of liberty and equality are not self-implementing, and most attempts to implement them fail. Finally, I argue that a range of political theorists from Hobbes to Madison studied the problem of implementing liberty and equality. In the 150 years prior to 1800, they helped devise a series of institutions that sustained liberty, equality, and the rule of law. These ideas also contributed to the great enrichment.     

The American system of shared powers: the President, Congress, and the NLRB

The purpose of this article is to develop and test a model ofpolitical influence on regulation that incorporates both thecompeting interests of elected officials and the relevant institutionalconstraints. To do this, we focus on one channel of politicalinfluence: the appointment of agency leaders to a multimemberregulatory board. The model has two stages: first, a bargainingstage between the president and Senate in which they choosea target policy; and second, the appointments stage in whichthey attempt to implement this target by choosing the medianboard member. The model's empirical leverage arises becauseelected officials can replace board members only when seatson the board become available through term expiration or resignation.This yields specific predictions about how and whether eachappointment will change policy. We apply the model to the NLRB.The empirical results, investigating all appointments to theNLRB from 1949 until 1988, fit our theory remarkably well.     

From federalism, Chinese style to privatization, Chinese style

In 1995, China began a profound reform of its state-owned enterprises. We first describe and characterize this progress in two areas: privatization of small state-owned enterprises at the county level and mass lay-offs of excess state workers at the city level. Local governments have initiated these reforms, which are proceeding in economically and politically sensible ways. We then argue that privatization, Chinese style, rests on an adequate economic and political foundation - federalism, Chinese style. We suggest a range of incentives that propel local governments toward state-owned enterprise reform, including their harder budget constraints and increased competition from the non-state sector. In this sense, federalism, Chinese style, has induced privatization, Chinese style.
JEL classification: H7, L30, P3.     

China's transition to markets: market-preserving federalism,chinese style

This paper studies the relationship between decentralization and the success of reform in China. We argue that a particular form of decentralization—called market-preserving federalism Chinese style—provides the critical foundations for market success. China's form of decentralization has served the critical purpose of creating markets at a time when political resistance to economic reform remained strong and when the durability of the reforms was important. Nonetheless, federalism, Chinese style, lacks some national public goods, and the new system needs to be institutionalized. We also highlight some parallels between the United States under the Articles of Confederation (1781-1787) and those of modern China.     

Second generation fiscal federalism: The implications of fiscal incentives

First generation fiscal federalism (FGFF) studies the performance of decentralized systems under the assumption of benevolent social planners. Second generation fiscal federalism (SGFF) studies performance based on the fiscal and political incentives facing subnational officials. The paper focuses on three aspects of SGFF. First, it considers the design of intergovernmental transfers. While FGFF emphasizes correcting vertical and horizontal equity, SGFF emphasizes the importance of fiscal incentives for producing local economic prosperity. SGFF extends FGFF approaches by showing how non-linear transfer systems can produce both equalization and high marginal fiscal incentives to produce local economic growth. Second, the paper raises the fiscal incentive approach, showing how different tax systems produce different fiscal incentives for political officials to choose policies. Third, the paper discusses the interaction of democracy and fiscal federalism.