IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/phs/prejrn/v48y2011i2p41-78.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Indolence, incentives, and institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Emmanuel S. de Dios

    (School of Economics University of the Philippines Diliman)

Abstract

Rizal’s economic ideas are among the least studied aspects of his work. A careful reading of his writing, however, particularly his 1890 essay “On the indolence of the Filipinos,” suggests that Rizal’s economic views were in general agreement with those of Enlightenment thinkers regarding the basis of progress, which was to be found in freedom of commerce and a government that was effective in its inherently limited sphere. The apparent absence of specific recommendations or hints of economic policy did not reflect a lacuna in Rizal’s thought but a proper concern for the prior and more important issues of specifying the minimal institutional foundations of a functioning economy—namely, the maintenance of peace, security of property rights, and facilitating the free movement of people and goods. Rizal went beyond Smithian minimalism, however, since he viewed the Spanish colonization as having not only severely undermined incentives but also destroyed hitherto promising and sound informal institutions that would have supported material progress among the subject Filipinos. As a result, Rizal viewed the reform of formal institutions as a necessary but insufficient condition for promoting the country’s economic progress. This was another important reason for his insistence on the need for mass education.

Suggested Citation

  • Emmanuel S. de Dios, 2011. "Indolence, incentives, and institutions," Philippine Review of Economics, University of the Philippines School of Economics and Philippine Economic Society, vol. 48(2), pages 41-78, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:phs:prejrn:v:48:y:2011:i:2:p:41-78
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/index.php/pre/article/view/666/772
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglass C. North, 2005. "Introduction to Understanding the Process of Economic Change," Introductory Chapters, in: Understanding the Process of Economic Change, Princeton University Press.
    2. Emmanuel S. de Dios, 2000. "From Sanciano to Encarnacion : Footnotes to a Genealogy of Economics in the Philippines," Philippine Review of Economics, University of the Philippines School of Economics and Philippine Economic Society, vol. 37(2), pages 26-67, December.
    3. Margo, Robert A., 2010. "Natural Experiments in History. Edited by Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Pp. 2, 278. $29.95," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 770-772, September.
    4. North,Douglass C. & Wallis,John Joseph & Weingast,Barry R., 2013. "Violence and Social Orders," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107646995.
    5. Hausman,Daniel M., 1992. "The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521415019, December.
    6. Hausman,Daniel M., 1992. "The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521425230, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Suzuki, Tomo, 2003. "The accounting figuration of business statistics as a foundation for the spread of economic ideas," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 65-95, January.
    2. Kevin D. Hoover, 2016. "The Crisis in Economic Theory: A Review Essay," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1350-1361, December.
    3. Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & Larry Samuelson & David Schmeidler, 2011. "Economic Models as Analogies," PIER Working Paper Archive 12-001, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    4. Richard Langlois, 2013. "The Institutional Revolution: A review essay," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 383-395, December.
    5. Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont, 2013. "The Ideal Economy: A Prototype," MPRA Paper 51582, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Mur, Jesús & Angulo, Ana, 2009. "Model selection strategies in a spatial setting: Some additional results," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 200-213, March.
    7. Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & Larry Samuelson & David Schmeidler, 2014. "A Model of Modeling," PIER Working Paper Archive 14-026, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    8. Miguel A. Duran, 2007. "Mathematical Needs and Economic Interpretations," Contributions to Political Economy, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 26(1), pages 1-16.
    9. Ole Røgeberg & Morten Nordberg, 2005. "A defence of absurd theories in economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 543-562.
    10. Schaefer, Alexander, 2021. "Rationality, uncertainty, and unanimity: an epistemic critique of contractarianism," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(1), pages 82-117, March.
    11. Joshua M. Epstein, 2007. "Agent-Based Computational Models and Generative Social Science," Introductory Chapters, in: Generative Social Science Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling, Princeton University Press.
    12. Omar Al-Ubaydli, 2011. "How Large Looms the Ghost of the Past? State Dependence versus Heterogeneity in Coordination Games," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(2), pages 273-286, October.
    13. Giuseppe Garofalo, 2014. "Irreducible complexities: from Gödel and Turing to the paradigm of Imperfect Knowledge Economics," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 3463-3474, November.
    14. Yochanan Shachmurove, 2012. "Failing Institutions Are at the Core of the U.S. Financial Crisis," PIER Working Paper Archive 12-040, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    15. Giandomenica Becchio, 2020. "The Two Blades of Occam's Razor in Economics: Logical and Heuristic," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-17, July.
    16. Simon Hartmann & Thomas Lindner & Jakob Müllner & Jonas Puck, 2022. "Beyond the nation-state: Anchoring supranational institutions in international business research," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(6), pages 1282-1306, August.
    17. Smith, Peter, 2009. "Induction, complexity, and economic methodology," MPRA Paper 12693, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Kevin D. Hoover, "undated". "Econometrics And Reality," Department of Economics 97-28, California Davis - Department of Economics.
    19. Julian Reiss, 2001. "Natural economic quantities and their measurement," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 287-311.
    20. Kozenkow, Judit, 2011. "Merre tart az új intézményi közgazdaságtan?. Összefoglaló a Douglass C. North tiszteletére St. Louisban 2010. november 4. és 6. között rendezett konferenciáról [Whither the new institutional econom," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 190-194.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    institutions; incentives; pre-Hispanic Philippines; Spanish colonization; Rizal;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B12 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Classical (includes Adam Smith)
    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • N35 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Asia including Middle East
    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N45 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Asia including Middle East

    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:phs:prejrn:v:48:y:2011:i:2:p:41-78. 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: RT Campos (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/seupdph.html .

    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.