This volume breaks new ground in the economic theory of institutions. The contributors show how some of the tools of advanced economic theory can usefully contribute to an understanding of how ...institutions operate. They show how sound theoretical analysis can in fact enable economists to reach conclusions which will help practitioners avoid many pitfalls in the formation and implementation of development policies, both within individual countries and in the context of international aid. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/0198287623/toc.html
This paper explores the complexities in the relation between the state and capitalist development in China and India. In both countries some form of weak capitalism had developed for many decades ...long before liberation/independence. In the last two decades the private corporate sector has thrived in India, even though in the formal sector state-owned companies still account for about 40% of the total sales. Given the ideology of the long-ruling Party, the transition to capitalism in China is the more fascinating, and still somewhat contested, story. It is not easy to classify Chinese firms by their ownership or to distinguish between private control rights and other forms of public or semi-public control rights or to trace their varying shares in a firm. One can only make rough guesses. But the relationship between private business and the state is often rather clientelistic.
Wealth inequality and collective action Bardhan, Pranab; Ghatak, Maitreesh; Karaivanov, Alexander
Journal of public economics,
09/2007, Volume:
91, Issue:
9
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
We study the effect of inequality in the distribution of endowments of private inputs (
e.g., land, wealth) that are complementary in production with collective inputs (
e.g., contribution to public ...goods such as irrigation and extraction from common-property resources) on efficiency in a class of collective action problems. We focus on characterizing the joint surplus maximizing level of inequality, making due distinction between contributors and non-contributors, in a framework that allows us to consider a wide variety of collective action problems ranging from pure public goods to impure public goods to commons. We show that while efficiency increases with greater equality
within the groups of contributors and non-contributors, so long the externalities (positive or negative) are significant, there is an optimal degree of inequality
between these groups.
In this paper we point to special problems faced by economists in 'peripheral' fields (like development economics), particularly those at early stages of their career, in publishing their research ...results in mainline journals, and how this creates a kind of vicious circle that may be damaging to our profession.
In this readily accessible book Bardhan examines the political and social constraints on Indian development. In the newly added epilogue Bardhan comments on the process of liberalization in the ...1990's and examines the feasibility of the exercise in the light of ground realities. This ambitious and controversial book is essential reading for students of economics, politics and the general interested reader.
In this essay we argue that the key barriers to interdisciplinary work between economists and anthropologists are differences of methodology and epistemology—in what the two disciplines consider ...important to explain and how they evaluate the criteria for a good explanation. The essay is an introduction to three articles, on economics, anthropology, and the question of the commons, that illustrate some of these differences and that suggest both the potential and the pitfalls of trying to bridge these methodological gaps. Our goal is not somehow to resolve the differences. Rather, we are motivated by the belief that understanding what is important to the other discipline, and seeing the differences in the light of that understanding, is important for interdisciplinary work and for respectful conversation. We have highlighted three dichotomies that are emblematic of some of these differences: autonomy versus embeddedness, outcomes versus processes, and parsimony versus complexity. We hope that our discussion leads economists and anthropologists to reexamine the assumptions and modes of analysis that prevail within the disciplines and to open up new conversations in new directions.
