Topic
Institutional analysis
About: Institutional analysis is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2255 publications have been published within this topic receiving 151404 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
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Papers
Book•
1 Jan 1990TL;DR: Douglass C. North as discussed by the authors developed an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time.
Abstract: Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional change. Institutions create the incentive structure in an economy, and organisations will be created to take advantage of the opportunities provided within a given institutional framework. North argues that the kinds of skills and knowledge fostered by the structure of an economy will shape the direction of change and gradually alter the institutional framework. He then explains how institutional development may lead to a path-dependent pattern of development. In the final part of the book, North explains the implications of this analysis for economic theory and economic history. He indicates how institutional analysis must be incorporated into neo-classical theory and explores the potential for the construction of a dynamic theory of long-term economic change. Douglass C. North is Director of the Center of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and History at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a past president of the Economic History Association and Western Economics Association and a Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written over sixty articles for a variety of journals and is the author of The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (CUP, 1973, with R.P. Thomas) and Structure and Change in Economic History (Norton, 1981). Professor North is included in Great Economists Since Keynes edited by M. Blaug (CUP, 1988 paperback ed.)
29,112 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the role that institutions, defined as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, play in economic performance and how those institutions change and how a model of dynamic institutions explains the differential performance of economies through time.
Abstract: Examines the role that institutions, defined as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, play in economic performance and how those institutions change and how a model of dynamic institutions explains the differential performance of economies through time. Institutions are separate from organizations, which are assemblages of people directed to strategically operating within institutional constraints. Institutions affect the economy by influencing, together with technology, transaction and production costs. They do this by reducing uncertainty in human interaction, albeit not always efficiently. Entrepreneurs accomplish incremental changes in institutions by perceiving opportunities to do better through altering the institutional framework of political and economic organizations. Importantly, the ability to perceive these opportunities depends on both the completeness of information and the mental constructs used to process that information. Thus, institutions and entrepreneurs stand in a symbiotic relationship where each gives feedback to the other. Neoclassical economics suggests that inefficient institutions ought to be rapidly replaced. This symbiotic relationship helps explain why this theoretical consequence is often not observed: while this relationship allows growth, it also allows inefficient institutions to persist. The author identifies changes in relative prices and prevailing ideas as the source of institutional alterations. Transaction costs, however, may keep relative price changes from being fully exploited. Transaction costs are influenced by institutions and institutional development is accordingly path-dependent. (CAR)
26,720 citations
Book•
1 Jan 1990TL;DR: In this paper, an institutional approach to the study of self-organization and self-governance in CPR situations is presented, along with a framework for analysis of selforganizing and selfgoverning CPRs.
Abstract: Preface 1. Reflections on the commons 2. An institutional approach to the study of self-organization and self-governance in CPR situations 3. Analyzing long-enduring, self-organized and self-governed CPRs 4. Analyzing institutional change 5. Analyzing institutional failures and fragilities 6. A framework for analysis of self-organizing and self-governing CPRs Notes References Index.
19,732 citations
Book•
1 Jan 2005
TL;DR: Ostronr as discussed by the authors develops a syntax for institutions by starting from the first principles of deontic logic and makes elegant distinctions between often-confused concepts, such as a strategy determines who achieves what outcomes under which conditions; a norm is a strategy specified with what is permitted, obliged, or forbidden; and a rule is a norm specified with the consequences of not following the norm.
Abstract: Elinor Ostronr s Understanding Institutional Diversity draws an analogy between genetic rules of biological organisms and social rules of communities of humans. Just as natural scientists accumulated knowledge in the human genome project, the institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework is presented as the scaffolding for accumulation of knowledge on institutions. It is a framework that many social scientists will appreciate, because of its notion that knowledge about institutions can only be attained in real-life action situations. For Ostrom, social scientists are like engineers facing complex technologies: the recognition of rules does not solve a dilemma but opens up chances for tinkering with the system. Ostrom develops a syntax for institutions by starting from the first principles of deontic logic and makes elegant distinctions between often-confused concepts. For example, a strategy determines who achieves what outcomes under which conditions; a norm is a strategy specified with what is permitted, obliged, or forbidden; and a rule is a norm specified with what are the consequences of not following the norm. These arguments are supported by an impressive pool of empirical work. The focus of empirical analysis is on interaction of participants in action arenas such as a home, a city council, a firm, or an international organisation. It is an appealing focus, because it enables shifting the scale of analysis from local to global and any 'holon' in between a key analytical strength for understanding how nested institutions operate simultaneously at different scales and interact across scales. One fascinating chapter is devoted to controlled laboratory experiments with games. Its findings are used to modify the dominant model of human behaviour: the utility-maximising individual is given its proper role among the other games of life. Bold moves like this are risky. The framework that Ostrom constructs covers a vast territory and is likely to trigger critical questions such as these from other scholars:
5,789 citations
TL;DR: Levitsky et al. as mentioned in this paper developed a framework for studying informal institutions and integrating them into comparative institutional analysis, based on a typology of four patterns of formal-informal institutional interaction: complementary, accommodating, competing, and substitutive.
Abstract: Mainstream comparative research on political institutions focuses primarily on formal rules. Yet in many contexts, informal institutions, ranging from bureaucratic and legislative norms to clientelism and patrimonialism, shape even more strongly political behavior and outcomes. Scholars who fail to consider these informal rules of the game risk missing many of the most important incentives and constraints that underlie political behavior. In this article we develop a framework for studying informal institutions and integrating them into comparative institutional analysis. The framework is based on a typology of four patterns of formal-informal institutional interaction: complementary, accommodating, competing, and substitutive. We then explore two issues largely ignored in the literature on this subject: the reasons and mechanisms behind the emergence of informal institutions, and the nature of their stability and change. Finally, we consider challenges in research on informal institutions, including issues of identification, measurement, and comparison.Gretchen Helmke's book Courts Under Constraints: Judges, Generals, and Presidents in Argentina, will be published by Cambridge University Press. Steven Levitsky is the author of Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective and is currently writing a book on competitive authoritarian regimes in the post–Cold War era. The authors thank the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame for generously sponsoring conferences on informal institutions. The authors also gratefully acknowledge comments from Jorge Dominguez, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Dennis Galvan, Goran Hyden, Jack Knight, Lisa Martin, Hillel Soifer, Benjamin Smith, Susan Stokes, Maria Victoria Murillo, and Kurt Weyland, as well as three anonymous reviewers and the editors of Perspectives on Politics.
2,954 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 13 |
| 2024 | 15 |
| 2023 | 24 |
| 2022 | 25 |
| 2021 | 75 |
| 2020 | 89 |