IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/jeehcn/v12y2002i4n7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

All We've learnt: Colonial Teachings and Caribean Underdevelopment

Author

Listed:
  • Storr Virgil Henry

    (George Mason University)

Abstract

This paper argues that in order to understand West Indian economic underdevelopment, the saliency of the informal institutions that emerged during its colonial period and the effect these institutions have had on the emergence of a local entrepreneurial class can not be discounted. British colonial occupation, I contend, gave rise to two persistent informal institutions that have affected development: a belief in the ability and responsibility of government to direct the economy and pessimism regarding the possibility of entrepreneurial success. Relying on Schumpeter's discussion of the importance of entrepreneurs to economic development and North's work on informal institutions, I examine how the poverty of entrepreneurs in the region and the cultures of corruption, privilege and intervention that evolved as a result of the region's colonial experiences have hampered past efforts at development.Cet article soutient qu'afin de comprendre le sous-développement économique des Caraïbes, il est important de ne pas négliger la prédominance des institutions informelles qui ont émergé durant la période coloniale et l'influence que ces institutions ont eue sur l'émergence d'une classe entrepreneuriale locale. L'occupation coloniale britannique, selon l'auteur, a donné naissance à deux institutions informelles persistantes qui ont affecté le développement : une conviction dans la capacité et la responsabilité du gouvernement à diriger l'économie et un pessimisme vis-à-vis de la possibilité de succès entrepreneuriaux. En se fondant sur la théorie Schumpeterienne sur le rôle de l'entrepreneur dans le développement économique et sur les travaux de North concernant les institutions informelles, l'auteur examine comment la rareté des entrepreneurs dans la région et la corruption, les privilèges et les interventions qui ont évolué en résultat des expériences coloniales de la région, ont entravé les efforts de développement dans le passé.

Suggested Citation

  • Storr Virgil Henry, 2002. "All We've learnt: Colonial Teachings and Caribean Underdevelopment," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 12(4), pages 1-29, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jeehcn:v:12:y:2002:i:4:n:7
    DOI: 10.2202/1145-6396.1078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1145-6396.1078
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1145-6396.1078?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter J. Boettke (ed.), 1994. "The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 53.
    2. Emily Chamlee-Wright, 2005. "Entrepreneurial Response to “Bottom-up” Development Strategies in Zimbabwe," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 18(1), pages 5-28, January.
    3. Hill,Polly, 1986. "Development Economics on Trial," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521310963.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Niklas Elert & Magnus Henrekson, 2021. "Entrepreneurship prompts institutional change in developing economies," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 33-53, March.
    2. Virgil Henry Storr, 2015. "Weber’s spirit of capitalism and the Bahamas’ Junkanoo ethic," Chapters, in: Laura E. Grube & Virgil Henry Storr (ed.), Culture and Economic Action, chapter 11, pages 243-266, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Laura E. Grube, 2015. "The role of culture in the persistence of traditional leadership: evidence from KwaZulu Natal, South Africa," Chapters, in: Laura E. Grube & Virgil Henry Storr (ed.), Culture and Economic Action, chapter 17, pages 375-397, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Shruti Rajagopalan & Virgil Storr, 2012. "The rationality of taking to the hills," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 53-62, March.
    5. Virgil Henry Storr, 2015. "Context matters: the importance of time and place in economic narratives," Chapters, in: Laura E. Grube & Virgil Henry Storr (ed.), Culture and Economic Action, chapter 8, pages 180-204, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Solomon Stein & Virgil Storr, 2013. "The difficulty of applying the economics of time and ignorance," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 27-37, March.
    7. Virgil Storr, 2011. "On the hermeneutics debate: An introduction to a symposium on Don Lavoie's “The Interpretive Dimension of Economics—Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxeology”," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 85-89, June.
    8. Virgil Henry Storr & Bridget Colon, 2015. "Subalternity and entrepreneurship: tales of marginalized but enterprising characters, oppressive settings and haunting plots," Chapters, in: Laura E. Grube & Virgil Henry Storr (ed.), Culture and Economic Action, chapter 15, pages 337-354, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Virgil Henry Storr & Stefanie Haeffele-Balch & Laura E. Grube, 2015. "Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster," Perspectives from Social Economics, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-31489-5, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Virgil Storr, 2011. "On the hermeneutics debate: An introduction to a symposium on Don Lavoie's “The Interpretive Dimension of Economics—Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxeology”," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 85-89, June.
    2. Bryan Caplan & Edward Stringham, 2005. "Mises, bastiat, public opinion, and public choice," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 79-105.
    3. John Lodewijks, 1994. "Anthropologists and economists: conflict or cooperation?," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 81-104.
    4. M.Ellman., 2010. "What Did The Study of The Soviet Economy Contribute to Mainstream Economics?," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 3.
    5. William J. Luther & J. P. McElyea, 2018. "Austrian Macroeconomics in Search of Its Uniqueness," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 33(Summer 20), pages 1-20.
    6. García Iborra, Rafael & Howden, David, 2016. "Uses and Misuses of Arbitrage in Financial Theory, and a Suggested Alternative," MPRA Paper 79802, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Philippe DULBECCO & Jean-Pierre ALLEGRET & COURBIS, 1999. "Financial Liberalisation and Stability of the Financial System in Emerging Markets: the institutional dimension of financial crises," Working Papers 199918, CERDI.
    8. William Butos, 2003. "Knowledge Questions: Hayek, Keynes and Beyond," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 16(4), pages 291-307, December.
    9. David Hulme & John Toye, 2006. "The case for cross-disciplinary social science research on poverty, inequality and well-being," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(7), pages 1085-1107.
    10. Virgil Henry Storr, 2015. "Context matters: the importance of time and place in economic narratives," Chapters, in: Laura E. Grube & Virgil Henry Storr (ed.), Culture and Economic Action, chapter 8, pages 180-204, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Don Lavoie & Virgil Storr, 2011. "Distinction or dichotomy: Rethinking the line between thymology and praxeology," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 213-233, June.
    12. Ikeda Sanford, 2002. "The Role of "Social Capital" in the Market Process," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 1-14, June.
    13. Thomas Mayer, "undated". "Boettke'S Austrian Critique Of Mainstream Economics: An Empiricist'S Response," Department of Economics 97-31, California Davis - Department of Economics.
    14. Minniti Maria & Koppl Roger, 1999. "The Unintended Consequences of Entrepreneurship," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 1-20, December.
    15. Oliver Budzinski & Arndt Christiansen, 2007. "The Oracle/PeopleSoft Case: Unilateral Effects, Simulation Models and Econometrics in Contemporary Merger Control," Marburg Working Papers on Economics 200702, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    16. Ruta Aidis, 2003. "Officially Despised Yet Tolerated: Open-air Markets and Entrepreneurship in Post-socialist Countries," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 461-473.
    17. Michael Litschka & Kristoffel Grechenig, 2010. "Law by human intent or evolution? Some remarks on the Austrian school of economics’ role in the development of law and economics," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 57-79, February.
    18. Marian Eabrasu, 2008. "An Assessment of Subjectivism. Its Meaning and its Limits," ICER Working Papers 01-2008, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    19. Jean-Pierre Allegret & Bernard Courbis & Philippe Dulbecco, 2003. "Intermédiation et stabilité financière dans les marchés émergents," Post-Print hal-01660189, HAL.
    20. Akwabi-Ameyaw, Kofi, 1997. "Producer cooperative resettlement projects in Zimbabwe: Lessons from a failed agricultural development strategy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 437-456, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:jeehcn:v:12:y:2002:i:4:n:7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.