From Rites to Rights: the Co-evolution of Political, Economic and Social Structures

Brooks Kaiser and James Roumasset

No 200703, Working Papers from University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics

Abstract: It is the charge of economic history not only to explain the economic past, but to use it to enrich and develop economic theory (North, 1994). In paleoeconomics, theory plays the additional role of adding veracity of accounts based on sparse evidence through the demonstration of internal consistency. We synthesize pre-historical and historical evidence available from the settlement and modernization of the Hawaiian economy into a stylized picture of the co-evolution of production and governance structures called the governmental Kuznets curve. We explain the co-evolution with a theory of institutional change that includes the roles of resource scarcity and opportunities for internal and external economies of scale in the increasing intensification and specialization of production. These are facilitated first by a steeper and then by a flatter political organization.

Keywords: Paleoeconomics; governance; institutional change; Hawaiian economy; intensification; specialization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 N0 O12 O43 Q2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2007-03-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pke
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://www.economics.hawaii.edu/research/workingpapers/WP_07-3.pdf First version, 2007 (application/pdf)

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