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Category: Institutions and regulation

Taking stock of Institutionalism

Published by demetriodor on September 27, 2012

This year’s Nobel Symposium has been on the topic of Growth and Development. Several of the presentations (available here) deal with the impact of institutions on economic growth and development. The contributions by Daron Acemoglu and Andrei Shleifer in particular do a great job in taking stock of what we know about the role institutions play in society and the economy. And the discussion is useful in understanding the methodological challenges in demonstrating the importance of institutions as well. Highly recommended.

Co-decision and decision-making speed in the EU

Published by demetriodor on May 15, 2012

Our paper (with Anne Rasmussen) on the influence of early agreements (trilogues) on the speed of decision making in the EU has just been published by the European Integration Online Papers (EIoP). The abstract is below. Anne blogged about the findings here.   Abstract: The increased use of early agreements in the EU co-decision procedure raises the concern that intra and inter-institutional political debate is sacrificed for the sake of efficiency. We investigate the effect of early agreements (trilogues) on the time it takes for legislation to be negotiated during the first reading of co-decision. We find that the first reading negotiations of trilogues on salient legislation take longer than first readings of similar files reconciled at second and third reading. First readings of early agreements also appear to last longer when considering all co-decision files submitted to the 5th and 6th European Parliaments, but the effect is masked by a general increase in first reading duration after 2004. We conclude that even if early agreements restrict access of certain actors to decision making, they allow for more time for substantive debate at the first reading stage than similar files reconciled later in the legislative process. By the way, let me use the occasion to congratulate EIoP for being one of the very few free  and rigorously peer-reviewed, SSCI-indexed, journals. All articles are available online without a subscription and without a registration. While many people talk against the gated and hugely expensive academic journals, very few authors actually support the free…

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Inclusive institutions and economic development

Published by demetriodor on May 3, 2012

Francis Fukuyama reviews Why Nations Fail, the new book by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, at his blog. The review is fairly critical. Fukuyama agrees that institutions are of paramount importance for development (as you would expect given his own recent book) but is unsatisfied with the vague (or even missing) definitions of the two central concepts of the book – ‘inclusive institutions’ and ‘extractive institutions’. This conceptual stretching allows the labels to be applied quite arbitrarily to fit the argument of the book. In substantive terms the critique boils down to the question whether democratic (inclusive) institutions are necessary for stable economic development. In Fukuyama’s view they are not (think contemporary China) and might even be counterproductive (following Huntington). In Acemoglu and Robinson’s view, democratic political institutions and inclusive economic institutions are indispensible for sustained long-term development. Fukuyama’s quibble with Why Nations Fail fits into a line of argumentation he is in the midst of constructing which can be summarized as ‘good governance is necessary for development but democracy is not necessary for good governance’. His latest project, for example, is to develop a new conceptualization and measurement of governance which moves away from the traditional indicators of (Western-style) rule of law and democratic accountability. Here is a characteristic quote from the project’s announcement: One can think of many ways in which greater democratic participation actually weakens the quality of governance.   Acemoglu and Robinson respond to Fukuyama’s review at their own blog. But in my opinion Fukuyama’s general critique (and his smaller points…

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What to do about improving governance?

Published by demetriodor on March 22, 2012

Here is a link to my interview for Gulan Magazine discussing how to establish good governance and the role of formal institutions. “Even if institutions are working in Western Europe or in the US and they are imported to the developing countries, there is no guarantee that they would produce the same outcome because institutions are embedded (they function) in a certain environment and when they are transferred to other countries there is no guarantee that they would work. I have some experience observing from very close the institutional transfer recommended by the western advisers to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe – these countries were consolidating their democracies and when they were building their market economies – some of the imported institutions worked and some of the institutions that were suggested by western experts were actually counterproductive. Again, importing institutions can only do that much – it really depends on the local people to make them work. There are some institutions that obviously benefit the society in many different contexts no matter the country, developing or developed. For example stable civil service.” Here is a link to Mark Twain on why you shouldn’t give interviews 😉

Myron’s Law

Published by demetriodor on January 23, 2012

“Asymptotically, any finite tax code collects zero revenue” This is what economist Paul Romer calls Myron’s Law (after Myron Scholes). It is a great aphorism as it illuminates a neglected source of institutional change – the opportunistic adaptation of the regulated actors to the rules which spurs transformations of the rules which leads to behavioral adaptation, ad infinitum. Usually, institutions are regarded as sticky, slow-moving and resilient to change. Which might be true for constitutions, but is easily disqualified when once looks beyond the fundamental ‘rules of the game’ into tax codes, the network of public organizations, the details of electoral systems and other lower-level institutions. Few seem to realize that these change all the time, and we have precious little theory to explain why. In fact, the degree of change is such that one wonders whether tax codes and the like qualify as institutions at all. In a way, they are like the proverbial river – always changing yet somehow remaining the same.