Institutions and Economic Growth in Historical Perspective: Part 2

Sheilagh Ogilvie and A. W. Carus

No 4862, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This is Part 2 of a two-part paper which surveys the historical evidence on the role of institutions in economic growth. The paper provides a critical scrutiny of a number of stylized facts widely accepted in the growth literature. It shows that private-order institutions have not historically substituted for public-order ones in enabling markets to function; that parliaments representing wealth holders have not invariably been favourable for growth; and that the Glorious Revolution of 1688 did not mark the sudden emergence of either secure property rights or economic growth. Economic history has been used to support both the centrality and the irrelevance of secure property rights to growth, but the reason for this is conceptual vagueness. Secure property rights require much more careful analysis, distinguishing between rights of ownership, use and transfer, and between generalized and particularized variants. Similar careful analysis would, we argue, clarify the growth effects of other institutions, including contract-enforcement mechanisms, guilds, communities, serfdom, and the family. Greater precision concerning institutional effects on growth can be achieved by developing sharper criteria of application for conventional institutional labels, endowing institutions with a scale of intensity or degree, and recognizing that the effects of each institution depend on its relationship with other components of the wider institutional system. Part 2 of the paper examines how institutions are situated in wider institutional systems, explores alternative approaches to explaining institutions, and applies the arguments established in earlier sections to the institution of serfdom. It concludes by drawing the implications of both parts of the paper for institutions and economic growth in historical perspective.

Keywords: institutions; economic growth; economic history; private-order institutions; public-order institutions; parliaments; property rights; contract enforcement; guilds; serfdom; the family; Maghribi traders; Champagne fairs; European Marriage Pattern (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N01 N30 N40 N50 N70 O17 P00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (42)

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