Institutions Social Norms And Economic Development

Download or read book Institutions, Social Norms and Economic Development written by Jean-Philippe Platteau and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order for economic specialization to develop, it is important that well-defined property rights are established and that suspicion and fear of fraud do not pervade transactions. Such conditions cannot be created ex abrubto, but must somehow evolve. What needs to develop is not only suitable practices and rules themselves, but also the public agencies and moral environment without which generalized trust is difficult to establish. The cultural endowment of societies as they have developed over their particular histories is bound to play a major role in this regard, and the matter of cultual endowment is one of the central themes of this book. On the other hand, division of labour does not only require well-enforced property rights and trust in economic dealings. It is also critically conditioned by the thickness of economic space, itself dependent on population density. This provides the second major theme of the volume: market development, including the development of private property rights is not possible, or will remain very incomplete, if populations are thinly spread over large areas of land. The book makes special reference to sub-Saharan Africa.

Download or read book On Norms and Agency written by Ana María Muñoz Boudet and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on focus groups and interviews with nearly 4,000 women, men, girls, and boys from 20 countries, this book explores areas that are less often studied in gender and development: gender norms and agency. It reveals how little gender norms have changed, how similar they are across countries, and how they are being challenged and contested.

Download or read book Experimenting with Social Norms written by Jean Ensminger and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2014-10-22 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Questions about the origins of human cooperation have long puzzled and divided scientists. Social norms that foster fair-minded behavior, altruism and collective action undergird the foundations of large-scale human societies, but we know little about how these norms develop or spread, or why the intensity and breadth of human cooperation varies among different populations. What is the connection between social norms that encourage fair dealing and economic growth? How are these social norms related to the emergence of centralized institutions? Informed by a pioneering set of cross-cultural data, Experimenting with Social Norms advances our understanding of the evolution of human cooperation and the expansion of complex societies. Editors Jean Ensminger and Joseph Henrich present evidence from an exciting collaboration between anthropologists and economists. Using experimental economics games, researchers examined levels of fairness, cooperation, and norms for punishing those who violate expectations of equality across a diverse swath of societies, from hunter-gatherers in Tanzania to a small town in rural Missouri. These experiments tested individuals’ willingness to conduct mutually beneficial transactions with strangers that reap rewards only at the expense of taking a risk on the cooperation of others. The results show a robust relationship between exposure to market economies and social norms that benefit the group over narrow economic self-interest. Levels of fairness and generosity are generally higher among individuals in communities with more integrated markets. Religion also plays a powerful role. Individuals practicing either Islam or Christianity exhibited a stronger sense of fairness, possibly because religions with high moralizing deities, equipped with ample powers to reward and punish, encourage greater prosociality. The size of the settlement also had an impact. People in larger communities were more willing to punish unfairness compared to those in smaller societies. Taken together, the volume supports the hypothesis that social norms evolved over thousands of years to allow strangers in more complex and large settlements to coexist, trade and prosper. Innovative and ambitious, Experimenting with Social Norms synthesizes an unprecedented analysis of social behavior from an immense range of human societies. The fifteen case studies analyzed in this volume, which include field experiments in Africa, South America, New Guinea, Siberia and the United States, are available for free download on the Foundation’s website:www.russellsage.org.

Download or read book The Role of Institutions in Economic Development written by Douglass Cecil North and published by New York and Geneva : United Nations. This book was released on 2003 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper contains the text of a lecture delivered by Nobel laureate Professor Douglass C. North in March 2003, the first in a second series of lectures in honour of Gunnar Myrdal (the first Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Europe). The lecture highlights the important role played by institutions (defined as including formal rules such as the rule of law and property rights, as well as informal constraints relating to beliefs, traditions and social norms) in promoting socio-economic development. Professor North argues that the considerable gaps in per capita income between richer and poorer countries reflect the quality of their institutions. However, in a continuously evolving world economy, there is no single strategy for institutional design to fit all countries seeking sustained economic growth and development.

Download or read book Institutions, Social Norms, and Economic Development written by Jean-Philippe Platteau and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Handbook of Economic Development and Institutions written by Jean-Marie Baland and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 786 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The essential role institutions play in understanding economic development has long been recognised and has been closely studied across the social sciences but some of the most high profile work has been done by economists many of whom are included in this collection covering a wide range of topics including the relationship between institutions and growth, educational systems, the role of the media and the intersection between traditional systems of patronage and political institutions. Each chapter covers the frontier research in its area and points to new areas of research and is the product of extensive workshopping and editing. The editors have also written an excellent introduction which brings together the key themes of the handbook. The list of contributors is stellar (Steven Durlauf, Throsten Beck, Bob Allen,and includes a diverse mix of Western and non Western, male and female scholars)"

Download or read book Atlas of Gender and Development How Social Norms Affect Gender Equality in non-OECD Countries written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gender inequality holds back not just women but the economic and social development of entire societies. This atlas presents a new measure of gender inequality which examines women’s status according to family situation, physical integrity, son preference, civil liberties and ownership rights.