Economics of Institutions Reading List

The reading list below is based on a reading list originally used for an internal GPI reading group. These reading groups are used as a way of doing an early-stage exploration of new areas that seem promising from an academic global priorities research perspective.  Each topic is often used as the theme for one or two weekly discussions, and in most cases those attending the discussion will have read or skimmed the suggested materials beforehand. 

As I thought that it could be a valuable resource for those interested in academic global priorities research, I’m sharing it here, with permission from the authors. All the credit for the list below goes to them.

Disclaimer: The views presented in the readings suggested below do not necessarily represent views held by me, GPI, or any GPI staff member.

1. Institutions, development and long-run growth

• Main readings
  • Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. ‘Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth’. Handbook of Economic Growth, 1A (2005): 385–472.
  • Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2008). Persistence of power, elites, and institutions. American Economic Review, 98(1), 267-93.
  • Banerjee, A. V., & Duflo, E. (2014). Under the Thumb of History? Political institutions and the Scope for Action. Annu. Rev. Econ., 6(1), 951-971.
  • Alesina, A., & Giuliano, P. (2015). Culture and Institutions. Journal of Economic Literature, 53(4), 898-944.
• Related readings
  • Acemoglu, Daron, Johnson, Simon and Robinson, James (2001) The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation, American Economic Review 91, n. 5 pp. 1369-1401.
  • Acemoglu, Daron, Johnson, Simon and Robinson, James (2002) “Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107, 1231-1294.
  • Acemoglu, Daron, Johnson, Simon and Robinson, James (2005). “Unbundling Institutions.” Journal of Political Economy 2005 113:5, 949-995
  • Acemoglu D, Robinson JA. 2013. Economics versus politics: pitfalls of policy advice. J. Econ. Perspect. 27(2):173–92
  • James M. Cypher (2018) Interpreting Contemporary Latin America through the Hypotheses of Institutional Political Economy, Journal of Economic Issues, 52:4, 947-986.
  • Alberto Alesina, Dani Rodrik, Distributive Politics and Economic Growth, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 109, Issue 2, May 1994, Pages 465–490.
  • Dell, Melissa (2010), The Persistent Effects of Peru’s Mining Mita, Econometrica 78, n. 6.
  • Matthews,  R. C. O. "The Economics of Institutions and the Sources of Growth." The Economic Journal 96, no. 384 (1986): 903-18.
  • Pande, Rohini and Udry, Christopher (2005) “Institutions and Development: A View from Below,” Proceedings of the 9th World Congress of the Econometric Society.
  • Sachs, Jeffrey (2001), Tropical Underdevelopment, NBER Working Paper Series, Working Paper 8119.
  • Gallup, John, Mellinger, Andrew, and Sachs, Jeffrey (1999), Geography and Economic Development, International Regional Science Review 22, 2: 179–232.

2. Economic history and Culture

• Main readings
  • Nunn, N. (2020). The historical roots of economic development. Science, 367(6485).
  • Nunn, N. (2014). Historical development. In Handbook of economic growth (Vol. 2, pp. 347-402). Elsevier.
  • Kelly, Morgan (2019). “The Standard Errors of Persistence”.
  • Ogilvie, S., & Carus, A. W. (2014). Institutions and economic growth in historical perspective. In Handbook of economic growth (Vol. 2, pp. 403-513). Elsevier.
  • Voigtländer, Nico and Hans-Joachim Voth (2012). “Persecution perpetuated: the medieval origins of anti-Semitic violence in Nazi Germany”. In: The Quarterly Journal of Economics 127.3, pp. 1339–1392.
  • Tabellini Guido. “Institutions and Culture,” Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 6, Issue 2-3, 1 May 2008, Pages 255–294.
  • Bowles, S. and Belloc M. (2013), “The Persistence of Inferior Cultural-Institutional Conventions.” American Economic Review 103(3): 1-7.
• Related readings
  • Diamond, Jared (1997) Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
  • Jha, Saumitra (2013). “Trade, institutions, and ethnic tolerance: Evidence from South Asia”. In: American political Science review 107.4, pp. 806–832.
  • Morris, Ian (2004) Economic Growth in Ancient Greece, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 160(4), 709-742.
  • Mokyr, Joel, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress.
  • Stasavage, David (2017). “When Inclusive Institutions Failed: Lessons from the Democratic Revolutions of the Middle Ages”, mimeo.
  • Thorsten Beck, George Clarke, Alberto Groff, Philip Keefer, Patrick Walsh, New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions, The World Bank Economic Review, Volume 15, Issue 1, June 2001, Pages 165–176.
  • Arthur, W. B. (1989). Competing technologies, increasing returns, and lock-in by historical events. The economic journal, 99(394), 116-131.
  • Acemoglu and Robinson, (2016), Paths to inclusive political institutions, Economic History of Warfare and State Formation pp 3-50.
  • Spolaore, E., & Wacziarg, R. (2014). Long-term barriers to economic development. In Handbook of economic growth (Vol. 2, pp. 121-176). Elsevier.
  • North, D., & Weingast, B. (1989). Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England. The Journal of Economic History, 49(4), 803-832. 

3. Mechanism design for (longtermist) institutions

• Main readings
  • Maskin, Eric S. ‘Mechanism Design: How to Implement Social Goals’. American Economic Review 98, no. 3 (2008): 567–76.
  • Bowles, S. and Hwang, S-H (2008) Social Preferences and Public Economics: Mechanism Design when Social Preferences Depend on Incentives Journal of Public Economics 92 (2008): 1811-1820.
  • Karp, L. (2005). Global warming and hyperbolic discounting. Journal of Public Economics, 89(2-3), 261-282.
  • Nordhaus, W. (2015). Climate clubs: Overcoming free-riding in international climate policy. American Economic Review, 105(4), 1339-70.
  • Barrett, S. (2016), Collective Action to Avoid Catastrophe: When Countries Succeed, When They Fail, and Why. Glob Policy, 7: 45-55.
  • Hauser, O., Rand, D., Peysakhovich, A. et al. Cooperating with the future. Nature 511, 220–223 (2014).
• Related readings
  • Andreoni, James, Gee, Laura K., (2012) Gun for hire: Delegated enforcement and peer punishment in public goods provision, Journal of Public Economics 96, no. 11-12, pp 1036-1046.
  • Barrett, S. (2005). The theory of international environmental agreements. Handbook of environmental economics, 3, 1457-1516.
  • Gürerk, Özgur, Irlenbush Bernd, Rockenbach Bettina (2006), The Competitive Advantage of Sanctioning Institutions, Science 312, n.  5770 : 108-111.
  • Lohse, J., Waichman, I. The effects of contemporaneous peer punishment on cooperation with the future. Nat Commun 11, 1815 (2020). 
  • Zelmer, J., Linear Public Goods Experiments: A Meta-Analysis. Experimental Economics 6, 299–310 (2003). 
  • Jackson, Matthew (2003), Mechanism Theory.
  • Molina et al. (2019), Combating climate change with matching-commitment agreements
  • Barrett, S (2003), Environment and Statecraft: The strategy of environmental treaty-making.
  • Kremer et al. (2020), Advance Market Commitments: Insights from Theory and Experience.
  • Kremer (2019), Designing Advance Market Commitments for New Vaccines.
  • Clark and Wren Lexis (2016), Solving Commitment Problems in Disaster Risk Finance.
  • Wren-Lewis (2016), Designing Contracts for the Global Fund: Lessons from the Theory of Incentives.
  • Han Yen (2016), Global Health Donors Viewed as Regulators of Monopolistic Service Providers: Lessons from Regulatory Literature.
  • Brandl et al (2019), Donor Coordination: Collective Distribution of Individual Contributions.

4. Political economy

• Main readings
  • Acemoglu, D., Robinson J. (2013). Economics versus Politics: Pitfalls of Policy Advice. Journal of Economic Perspectives.
  • Acemoglu, Daron, Georgy Egorov, and Konstantin Sonin. "Political Economy in a Changing World." Journal of Political Economy 123, no. 5 (2015): 1038-086. Accessed April 21, 2020.
  • Coate, Stephen, and Stephen Morris. “Policy Persistence.” The American Economic Review, vol. 89, no. 5, 1999, pp. 1327–1336.
  • Rangel, A. (2003). Forward and backward intergenerational goods: Why is social security good for the environment?. American Economic Review, 93(3), 813-834.
  • Harstad, B. (2019). Technology and time inconsistency.
  • Summers, L., & Zeckhauser, R. (2008). Policymaking for posterity. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 37(2-3), 115-140.
• Related readings
  • Barry R. Weingast and Donald A. Wittman (2006). The reach of political economy.
  • Alesina, A., Stantcheva, S., & Teso, E. (2018). Intergenerational mobility and preferences for redistribution. American Economic Review, 108(2), 521-54.
  • Acemoglu, Daron (2006). “Modelling Inefficient Institutions”, Advances in Economic Theory World Congress 2006.
  • Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson, Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 115, Issue 4, November 2000, Pages 1167–1199.
  • Cohen, C., & Werker, E. D. (2008). “The Political Economy of ‘Natural’ Disasters.” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 52(6), 795–819. 
  • Kotlikoff, L. J., & Raffelhuschen, B. (1999). Generational accounting around the globe. American Economic Review, 89(2), 161-166.
  • Kuran, T. (1989). Sparks and prairie fires: A theory of unanticipated political revolution. Public choice, 61(1), 41-74.
  • Jackson, M. O., & Morelli, M. (2011). The reasons for wars: an updated survey. The handbook on the political economy of war, 34.
  • Lizzeri, A., & Persico, N. (2004). Why did the elites extend the suffrage? Democracy and the scope of government, with an application to Britain's “Age of Reform”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119(2), 707-765.
  • Neumayer, Eric & Plümper, Thomas & Barthel, Fabian. (2013). The Political Economy of Natural Disaster Damage. Global Environmental Change. 24.
  • Rangel, A. (2000). Forward and backward intergenerational goods: a theory of intergenerational exchange. National Bureau of Economic Research.
  • Sánchez De La Sierra, R. (2020). On the origins of the state: Stationary bandits and taxation in eastern Congo. Journal of Political Economy, 128(1)
  • Bisin, A., Lizzeri, A., & Yariv, L. (2015). Government policy with time inconsistent voters. American Economic Review, 105(6), 1711-37.

5. The relationship between institutions and culture

• Alesina, A., & Giuliano, P. (2015). Culture and Institutions. Journal of Economic Literature, 53(4), 898-944. 
• Dzionek-Kozlowska and Matera (2016), “Institutions Without Culture: A Critique of Acemoglu and Robinson’s Theory of Economic Development”
• Grief, A. (1994), ‘Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies’, Journal of Political Economy, 102(5): 912– 950.
• Tabellini, G. (2008), ‘Institutions and Culture’, Journal of the European Economic Association, 6(2–3): 255–294.
• Pejovich, S. (2003), ‘Understanding the Transaction Costs of Transition: It's the Culture, Stupid’, Review of Austrian Economics, 16(4): 347–361.
• Bowles, S. and Belloc M. “Persistence and Change in Culture and Institutions under Autarchy, Trade, and Factor Mobility.” American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 9(4) (2017): 245-276.
• Bowles, S. and Belloc M. (2013), The Persistence of Inferior Cultural-Institutional Conventions. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 103(3) (2013): 1-7.
• Guiso, L., Sapienza, P., & Zingales, L. (2006). Does culture affect economic outcomes? Journal of Economic perspectives, 20(2), 23-48.