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How to make institutional economics better

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2011

ROBBERT MASELAND
ROBBERT MASELAND*
Affiliation:
University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
*
*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract:

This comment criticizes Ha-Joon Chang's assessment of contemporary institutionalism, in his article entitled ‘Institutions and Economic Development: Theory, Policy and History’, for failing to show fundamental problems in the discourse. I argue that the current discourse's insights are structurally biased because it fails to satisfactorily address methodological problems of doing meaningful comparative research. The discourse is characterized by a limited focus on differences of degree, a neglect of interaction, and a tendency to represent societies from a partial perspective. The result is an unbalanced debate that tends towards equating developed country institutions with economic success.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 555 - 559
Copyright
Copyright © The JOIE Foundation 2011

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