Political Economy of Institutions

Catalog description

Without paying attention to institutions, one cannot understand why some societies are wealthy and others poor; why some are innovative and others un-creative; or why some are politically stable and others in perpetual turmoil. As such, this course should be of direct interest to students of economic development, economic history, social inequality, and democratization, among other fields of social inquiry. The first half of the course delineates the subject and covers the social mechanisms that govern institutional transformations. Attention is paid to the pace of institutional transformations, latent change, social inertia, political revolutions, and links among beliefs and behaviors. The second half focuses on the social functions of institutions. Again, the emphasis is on pertinent analytical methodologies. The functions studied include: the control of free riding, credible commitment, redistribution, the provision of collective goods, coordination, protection of expectations, generation of common knowledge, governance, rent seeking, and the reduction of transaction costs. 001278