‘Institutional Change and Economic Development’ discusses not just theoretical issues but a diverse range of real-life institutions – political, bureaucratic, fiscal, financial, corporate, legal, social and industrial – in the context of dozens of countries across time and space, spanning Britain, Switzerland and the USA in the past to Botswana, Brazil, and China today.
In recent years Business Schools have been the fastest growning part of the higher education system. This book assesses this development, and articulates a forward looking research agenda on the study of business schools as institutions.
Developing countries commonly adopt reforms to improve their governments yet they usually fail to produce more functional and effective governments. Andrews argues that reforms often fail to make governments better because they are introduced as signals to gain short-term support. These signals introduce unrealistic best practices that do not fit developing country contexts and are not considered relevant by implementing agents. The result is a set of new forms that do not function. However, there are realistic solutions emerging from institutional reforms in some developing countries. Lessons from these experiences suggest that reform limits, although challenging to adopt, can be overcome by focusing change on problem solving through an incremental process that involves multiple agents.
This book reviews the theoretical perspectives on institutional development (ID) and third world city management. It considers the practice of ID in city management by reviewing two related cases; on organizational strengthening and building a planning capability - both in local government. The synthesizing chapters offer some guidelines on, and tests for, ID in city management practice. The book therefore seeks to identify some general principles to guide the ID process in relation to third world city management.
This book analyzes the role played by initial endowments and colonizer identity in seeking to explain institutional development in former colonies. It presents a model of two styles of imperialism that integrates the colonial origin and endowment views explaining current institutions. The authors argue that Great Britain and Portugal adopted an ‘economically-oriented’ style, which was pragmatic and sensitive to initial conditions. For this style of imperialism the endowment view is applicable. In contrast, France employed a ‘politically-oriented’ style of imperialism, in which ideological and political motivations were more present. This led to a uniform colonial policy that largely disregarded initial endowments. In turn, the case of Spain represents a hybrid of the two models. The empirical analysis presented here reveals a remarkable degree of heterogeneity in the relationship of endowments and colonizer identity with current institutions.
Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development demonstrates the importance of one of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics winners Elinor Ostrom's research program. The Bloomington School has become one of the most dynamic, well recognized and productive centers of the New Institutional Theory movement. Its ascendancy is considered to be the result of a unique and extremely successful combination of interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and hard-nosed empiricism. This book demonstrates that the well-known interdisciplinary and empirical agenda of the Bloomington Research Program is the result of a less-known but very bold proposition: an attempt to revitalize and extend into the new millennium a traditional mode of analysis illustrated by authors like Locke, Montesquieu, Hume, Adam Smith, Hamilton, Madison and Tocqueville. As such, the School tries to synthesize the traditional perspectives with the contemporary developments in social sciences and thus to re-ignite the old approach in the new intellectual and political context of the twentieth century. The book presents an outline and a systematic analysis of the vision behind the Bloomington Research Program in Institutional Analysis and Development, explaining its basic assumptions and its main themes as well as the foundational philosophy that frames its research questions and theoretical and methodological approaches. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of social science, especially those in the fields of economics, political sciences, sociology and public administration.
Despite massive investment of money and research aimed at ameliorating third-world poverty, the development strategies of the international financial institutions over the past few decades have been a profound failure. Under the tutelage of the World Bank, developing countries have experienced lower growth and rising inequality compared to previous periods. In Beyond the World Bank Agenda, Howard Stein argues that the controversial institution is plagued by a myopic, neoclassical mindset that wrongly focuses on individual rationality and downplays the social and political contexts that can either facilitate or impede development. Drawing on the examples of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and transitional European economies, this revolutionary volume proposes an alternative vision of institutional development with chapter-length applications to finance, state formation, and health care to provide a holistic, contextualized solution to the problems of developing nations. Beyond the World Bank Agenda will be essential reading for anyone concerned with forging a new strategy for sustainable development.
All the evidence and studies confirm that the most successful organizations in the future are those organizations that can bring about rapid and effective change that involves long-lasting fundamental changes that may include the entire organization system. Successful organizations with outstanding performance achieve better financial and non-financial results than those achieved by their counterparts during a specific period, as this comes by focusing in a disciplined manner on the organization's priorities. An institution is like a legal person with a clear message within which the human element, work systems, and financial resources interact to achieve specific goals. We can divide institutions into four branches: the service institution, the production institution, the consulting institution, and the voluntary institution. Institutionality is one of the forms of organized work that is characterized by coordination and cooperation among all employees of the organization, which is based on a set of foundations and rules without which the work of the organization is disrupted. These regulations and foundations form the personality of this organization. Institutional development can be defined as a method or tool aimed at enabling workers to enhance the value of organizations, business establishments, and companies to which they belong through self-assessment activities, analysis, preparation, and follow-up of action plans to implement goals, which ultimately leads to the settlement of a culture of discrimination. Institutional development reflects a set of styles of thinking, behavior, and dealing with most employees in the organization, business enterprise, or company.
'Law and development is a difficult field. It is at once multi-disciplinary and comparative; historical and policy driven; theoretical and empirical; positive and normative. Here at long last is a book that provides a masterful overview and critical analysis that will make this field accessible to students and teachers alike.' Katharina Pistor, Columbia Law School, US This important book focuses on the idea that institutions matter for development, asking what lessons we have learned from past reform efforts, and what role lawyers can play in this field. What Makes Poor Countries Poor? provides a critical overview of different conceptions and theories of development, situating institutional theories within the larger academic debate on development. The book also discusses why, whether, and how institutions matter in different fields of development. In the domestic sphere, the authors answer these questions by analyzing institutional reforms in the public (rule of law, political regimes and bureaucracy) and the private sectors (contracts, property rights, and privatization). In the international sphere, they discuss the importance of institutions for trade, foreign direct investment, and foreign aid. This book will be essential reading for those interested in a concise introduction to the academic debates in this field, as well as for students, practitioners, and policymakers in law and development.
