Institutional and Organizational Analysis
Concepts and Applications

Why isn't the whole world developed? This toolkit for institutional analysis explains how rules affect the performance of countries, firms, and even families.

Eric Alston (Author), Lee J. Alston (Author), Bernardo Mueller (Author), Tomas Nonnenmacher (Author)

9781107086371, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 August 2018

406 pages, 19 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.6 cm, 0.67 kg

'This is a wonderful book - broad in scope (institutions, norms, organizations, and contracts), in disciplines (economics, political science, law, and history), and in methodologies (classic informal arguments, summaries of recent formal models, and incisive case studies). So many problems of collective action, productivity, development, and growth find almost no expression (not to mention solution) in neoclassical analyses of markets; Institutional and Organizational Analysis offers a way forward.' Robert Gibbons, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

What explains the great variability in economic growth and political development across countries? Institutional and organizational analysis has developed since the 1970s into a powerful toolkit, which argues that institutions and norms rather than geography, culture, or technology are the primary causes of sustainable development. Institutions are rules that recognized authorities create and enforce. Norms are rules created by long-standing patterns of behavior, shared by people in a society or organization. They combine to play a role in all organizations, including governments, firms, churches, universities, gangs, and even families. This introduction to the concepts and applications of institutional and organizational analysis uses economic history, economics, law, and political science to inform its theoretical framework. Institutional and organizational analysis becomes the basis to show why the economic and political performance of countries worldwide have not converged, and reveals the lessons to be learned from it for business, law, and public policy.

Introduction
Part I. From Institutions to Economic Outcomes: 1. Institutions and property rights
2. Property rights and transaction costs
3. Organizations and contracts
Part II. From Economic Outcomes to Political Performance: 4. Special interests and citizens
5. The legislature and executive
6. Bureaucracies
7. The judicial system
Part III. The Dynamics of Economic and Political Development: 8. Developmental trajectories: institutional deepening and critical transitions
9. Case studies of critical transitions: Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, and the United States
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Political economy [KCP], Development economics & emerging economies [KCM]