IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-1-4020-9690-7_16.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Analysing Institutions: What Method to Apply?

In: Institutions and Sustainability

Author

Listed:
  • Volker Beckmann

    (Institute of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

  • Martina Padmanabhan

    (Institute of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Abstract

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate about methods of institutional analysis. How to empirically analyse institutions and institutional change? Is there a superior method when it comes to institutional questions? We discuss these issues for the most common methods in empirical institutional analysis, i.e. case studies, econometrics, experiments and agent-based modelling. Building on Alston (1996), with reference to Williamson’s (2000) overview of institutional economics, we identify level of social analysis and research questions as two important dimensions that may guide methodological decision. Distinguishing between effects, causes and processes of institutional choice and change as the basic research questions in institutional analysis, and combining these with the four levels of social analysis (i.e., social embeddedness, institutional environment, governance structures, and resource allocation) helps to precisely distinguish between differently oriented investigations within a common theme. In addition, we discuss how the time horizon of a study, the observability and measurability of the institutions examined, and the roles that actors play therein significantly constrain possible choice sets among methods. In doing so, we identify trade-offs as well as important complementarities between applying different methods.

Suggested Citation

  • Volker Beckmann & Martina Padmanabhan, 2009. "Analysing Institutions: What Method to Apply?," Springer Books, in: Volker Beckmann & Martina Padmanabhan (ed.), Institutions and Sustainability, chapter 16, pages 341-371, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-1-4020-9690-7_16
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9690-7_16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Till Proeger & Lukas Meub & Kilian Bizer, 2018. "Laboratory Experiments of Tradable Development Rights: A Synthesis of Different Treatments," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-19, June.
    2. Maciejczak, Mariusz, 2015. "Will the institution of coexistence be re-defined by TTIP?," GMCC-15: Seventh GMCC, November 17-20, 2015, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 211478, International Conference on Coexistence between Genetically Modified (GM) and non-GM based Agricultural Supply Chains (GMCC).
    3. Buitrago R., Ricardo E. & Barbosa Camargo, María Inés, 2021. "Institutions, institutional quality, and international competitiveness: Review and examination of future research directions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 423-435.
    4. Zofia Å apniewska, 2017. "(Re)claiming Space by Urban Commons," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 49(1), pages 54-66, March.
    5. Kimmich, Christian, 2013. "Linking action situations: Coordination, conflicts, and evolution in electricity provision for irrigation in Andhra Pradesh, India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 150-158.
    6. Catherine Murray & Garry McDonald & Shane Cronin, 2015. "Interpreting Auckland’s volcanic governance through an institutional lens," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 75(1), pages 441-464, January.
    7. Kimmich, Christian & Sagebiel, Julian, 2016. "Empowering irrigation: A game-theoretic approach to electricity utilization in Indian agriculture," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(PB), pages 174-185.

    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:spr:sprchp:978-1-4020-9690-7_16. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.