IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/noj/journl/v32y2006p17-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Equity, Institutions and the Development Process

Author

Listed:
  • James A. Robinson

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

In this essay I argue that to develop institutions that promote economic development societies must be equitable in fundamental ways. I particularly emphasize how important an equitable distribution of political power in society is to have well functioning institutions that support market activities. I show these ideas are consistent with broad patterns in the cross-national data and country case studies.

Suggested Citation

  • James A. Robinson, 2006. "Equity, Institutions and the Development Process," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 32, pages 17-50.
  • Handle: RePEc:noj:journl:v:32:y:2006:p:17-50
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nopecjournal.org/NOPEC_2006_a02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Williamson, Jeffrey G. & O'Rourke, Kevin, 2002. "From Malthus to Ohlin: Trade, Growth and Distribution Since 1500," CEPR Discussion Papers 3394, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Lindert, Peter H. & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1982. "Revising England's social tables 1688-1812," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 385-408, October.
    3. Dani Rodrik, 1999. "Democracies Pay Higher Wages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 707-738.
    4. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    5. Stasavage,David, 2003. "Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521809672.
    6. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1995. "Institutions And Economic Performance: Cross‐Country Tests Using Alternative Institutional Measures," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 207-227, November.
    7. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2002. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1231-1294.
    8. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2000. "Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1167-1199.
    10. François Bourguignon & Christian Morrisson, 2002. "Inequality Among World Citizens: 1820-1992," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 727-744, September.
    11. Robinson, James A. & Mazzuca, Sebastián L, 2006. "Political Conflict and Power-Sharing in the Origins of Modern Colombia," CEPR Discussion Papers 5606, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Jiahua Che & Yingyi Qian, "undated". "Insecure Property Rights and Government Ownership of Firms," Working Papers 97050, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    13. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 803-832, December.
    14. Peter Lindert, 2004. "Social Spending and Economic Growth," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(4), pages 6-16.
    15. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    16. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    17. Li, Hongyi & Squire, Lyn & Zou, Heng-fu, 1998. "Explaining International and Intertemporal Variations in Income Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(446), pages 26-43, January.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James Robinson, 2005. "The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change, and Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 546-579, June.
    19. Lindert, Peter H., 2003. "Voice and Growth: Was Churchill Right?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(02), pages 315-350, June.
    20. Joseph J. Stern, 2003. "The Rise and Fall of the Indonesian Economy," CID Working Papers 100, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    21. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    22. Lindert, Peter H. & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1983. "Reinterpreting Britain's social tables, 1688-1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 94-109, January.
    23. Robert H. Bates & Avner Greif & Margaret Levi & Jean-Laurent, 1998. "Analytic Narratives," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 6355.
    24. Stern, Joseph J., 2003. "The Rise and Fall of the Indonesian Economy," Working Paper Series rwp03-030, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    25. Jiahua Che & Yingyi Qian, 1998. "Insecure Property Rights and Government Ownership of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 467-496.
    26. Raymond Fisman, 2001. "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1095-1102, September.
    27. Lindert, Peter H., 2003. "Voice and Growth: Was Churchill Right?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(2), pages 315-350, June.
    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. Ivan Gachet & Diego F. Grijalva & Paúl A. Ponce & Damián Rodríguez, 2019. "Vertical and Horizontal Inequality in Ecuador: The Lack of Sustainability," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 861-900, October.
    2. Bhattacharyya, Sambit, 2009. "Institutions, diseases, and economic progress: a unified framework," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 65-87, April.
    3. Ivan Gachet & Diego F. Grijalva & Paúl A. Ponce & Damián Rodríguez, 2019. "Vertical and Horizontal Inequality in Ecuador: The Lack of Sustainability," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 861-900, October.
    4. Constantine, Collin & Khemraj, Tarron, 2019. "Geography, economic structures and institutions: A synthesis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 371-379.
    5. Pedro Funari, 2016. "Institutions, Inequality, And Long-Term Development: A Perspective From Brazilian Regions," Anais do XLII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 42nd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 019, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].

    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. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    2. Acemoglu, Daron, 2008. "Oligarchikus és demokratikus társadalmak [Oligarchic versus democratic societies]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 622-659.
    3. Bhattacharyya, Sambit, 2009. "Institutions, diseases, and economic progress: a unified framework," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 65-87, April.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2008. "Persistence of Power, Elites, and Institutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 267-293, March.
    5. Baland, Jean-Marie & Moene, Karl Ove & Robinson, James A., 2010. "Governance and Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4597-4656, Elsevier.
    6. Nobuhiro Mizuno & Katsuyuki Naito & Ryosuke Okazawa, 2017. "Inequality, extractive institutions, and growth in nondemocratic regimes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 115-142, January.
    7. Daron Acemoglu, 2008. "Oligarchic Versus Democratic Societies," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(1), pages 1-44, March.
    8. Sambit Bhattacharyya, 2011. "Growth Miracles and Growth Debacles," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13609.
    9. Daron Acemoglu, 2003. "The Form of Property Rights: Oligarchic vs. Democratic Societies," NBER Working Papers 10037, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Andrea Asoni, 2008. "Protection Of Property Rights And Growth As Political Equilibria," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 953-987, December.
    11. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2015. "The Impact of Fundamental Development Factors on Different Income Groups: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113128, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.
    13. Peter H. Lindert, 2009. "Revealing Failures in the History of School Finance," NBER Working Papers 15491, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Uwe Sunde, 2006. "Wirtschaftliche Entwicklung und Demokratie – Ist Demokratie ein Wohlstandsmotor oder ein Wohlstandsprodukt?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 7(4), pages 471-499, November.
    15. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2003. "Halving Global Poverty," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    16. Krieger, Tommy, 2022. "Democracy and the quality of economic institutions: Theory and evidence," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-032, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    17. Cinnirella, Francesco & Hornung, Erik, 2016. "Landownership concentration and the expansion of education," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 135-152.
    18. Fuchs-Schündeln, N. & Hassan, T.A., 2016. "Natural Experiments in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 923-1012, Elsevier.
    19. Daron Acemoglu & Francisco A. Gallego & James A. Robinson, 2014. "Institutions, Human Capital, and Development ," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 875-912, August.
    20. Olsson, Ola, 2007. "On the Institutional Legacy of Mercantilist and Imperialist Colonialism," Working Papers in Economics 247, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.

    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:noj:journl:v:32:y:2006:p:17-50. 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: Halvor Mehlum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nopecjournal.org .

    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.