Institutions and Economic Performance

Edited by Kevin E. Davis, Beller Family Professor of Business Law, New York University School of Law, US

• Contents:AcknowledgementsIntroduction Kevin E. DavisPART IINSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS DEFINED 1. John R. Commons (1931), ‘Institutional Economics’2. Douglass C. North (1994), ‘Economic Performance Through Time’PART IITHE GENERAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INSTITUTIONS AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE 3. Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson (2001), ‘The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation’4. Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson (2002), ‘Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution’5. Edward L. Glaeser, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez de-Silanes and Andrei Shleifer (2004), ‘Do Institutions Cause Growth?’6. Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes and Andrei Shleifer (2008), ‘The Economic Consequences of Legal Origins’7. Daniel Berkowitz, Katharina Pistor and Jean-Francois Richard (2003), ‘Economic Development, Legality, and the Transplant Effect’8. Samuel Bowles (1998), ‘Endogenous Preferences: The Cultural Consequences of Markets and Other Economic Institutions’PART IIITHE ROLES OF SPECIFIC INSTITUTIONS 9. Dani Rodrik (2000), ‘Institutions for High-Quality Growth: What They Are and How to Acquire Them’10. Peter Evans (1992), ‘The State as Problem and Solution: Predation, Embedded Autonomy, and Structural Change’11. Mancur Olson (1993), ‘Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development’12. William J. Baumol (1990), ‘Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive’13. Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast (1989), ‘Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England’14. Timothy Besley (1995), ‘Property Rights and Investment Incentives: Theory and Evidence from Ghana’15. Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess (2000), ‘Land Reform, Poverty Reduction, and Growth: Evidence From India’16. Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer (2005), ‘History, Institutions, and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India’17. Bina Agarwal (1994), ‘Gender and Command Over Property: A Critical Gap in Economic Analysis and Policy in South Asia’18. Avner Greif (1994), ‘Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies’PART IVEXPLAINING INSTITUTIONAL VARIATION 19. Richard A. Posner (1980), ‘A Theory of Primitive Society, with Special Reference to Law’20. Vernon W. Ruttan and Yujiro Hayami (1984), ‘Toward a Theory of Induced Institutional Innovation’

‘. . . the book is a good example of the writing and reasoning style, sometimes vivid and intriguing, often used by NIE authors. Similarly, the book is a good sample of NIE’s multidisciplinary approach to economics. . . The range of papers presented gives the reader a good picture of the variety of approaches used by NIE scholars, and their ability to integrate sociological and legal consideration within the economic analysis.’