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Author: Daron Acemoglu Publisher: ISBN: Category : Economics Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
We construct a model of simultaneous change and persistence in institutions. The model consists of landowning elites and workers, and the key economic decision concerns the form of economic institutions regulating the transaction of labor (e.g., competitive markets versus labor repression). The main idea is that equilibrium economic institutions are a result of the exercise of de jure and de facto political power. A change in political institutions, for example a move from nondemocracy to democracy, alters the distribution of de jure political power, but the elite can intensify their investments in de facto political power, such as lobbying or the use of paramilitary forces, to partially or fully offset their loss of de jure power. In the baseline model, equilibrium changes in political institutions have no effect on the (stochastic) equilibrium distribution of economic institutions, leading to a particular form of persistence in equilibrium institutions, which we refer to as invariance. When the model is enriched to allow for limits on the exercise of de facto power by the elite in democracy or for costs of changing economic institutions, the equilibrium takes the form of a Markov regime-switching process with state dependence. Finally, when we allow for the possibility that changing political institutions is more difficult than altering economic institutions, the model leads to a pattern of captured democracy, whereby a democratic regime may survive, but choose economic institutions favoring the elite. The main ideas featuring in the model are illustrated using historical examples from the U.S. South, Latin America and Liberia. Keywords: democracy, de facto power, de jure power, dictatorship, elites, institutions, labor repression, persistence, political economy. JEL Classifications: H2, N10, N40, P16.
Author: Daron Acemoglu Publisher: ISBN: Category : Economics Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
We construct a model of simultaneous change and persistence in institutions. The model consists of landowning elites and workers, and the key economic decision concerns the form of economic institutions regulating the transaction of labor (e.g., competitive markets versus labor repression). The main idea is that equilibrium economic institutions are a result of the exercise of de jure and de facto political power. A change in political institutions, for example a move from nondemocracy to democracy, alters the distribution of de jure political power, but the elite can intensify their investments in de facto political power, such as lobbying or the use of paramilitary forces, to partially or fully offset their loss of de jure power. In the baseline model, equilibrium changes in political institutions have no effect on the (stochastic) equilibrium distribution of economic institutions, leading to a particular form of persistence in equilibrium institutions, which we refer to as invariance. When the model is enriched to allow for limits on the exercise of de facto power by the elite in democracy or for costs of changing economic institutions, the equilibrium takes the form of a Markov regime-switching process with state dependence. Finally, when we allow for the possibility that changing political institutions is more difficult than altering economic institutions, the model leads to a pattern of captured democracy, whereby a democratic regime may survive, but choose economic institutions favoring the elite. The main ideas featuring in the model are illustrated using historical examples from the U.S. South, Latin America and Liberia. Keywords: democracy, de facto power, de jure power, dictatorship, elites, institutions, labor repression, persistence, political economy. JEL Classifications: H2, N10, N40, P16.
Author: G. William Domhoff Publisher: SAGE Publications, Incorporated ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
These essays comprise recent theory and research on the role of elites within society. Four empirical studies consider power structures within organizations - corporations, government agencies and private social service agencies. The ways in which private organizations and their leaders relate to government are explored and theoretical essays on the role of elites from different perspectives are presented.
Author: G. William Domhoff Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351476645 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 570
Book Description
This volume presents a network of social power, indicating that theories inspired by C.Wright Mills are far more accurate views about power in America than those of Mills's opponents.Dr. Domhoff shows how and why coalitions within the power elite have involved themselves in such policy issues as the Social Security Act (1935) and the Employment Act (1946), and how the National Labor Relations Act (1935) could pass against the opposition of every major corporation. The book descri bes how experts worked closely with the power elite in shaping the plansfor a post-World War II world economic order, in good part realized during the past 30 years. Arguments are advanced that the fat cats who support the Democrats cannot be understood in terms of narrow self-interest, and that moderate conservatives dominated policy-making under Reagan.
Author: Alan Shipman Publisher: Anthem Press ISBN: 1783087897 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 433
Book Description
Elites have always ruled – wielding inordinate power and wealth, taking decisions that shape life for the rest. In good times the ‘1%’ can hide their privilege, or use growing social mobility and economic prosperity as a justification. When times get tougher there’s a backlash. So the first years of the twenty-first century – a time of financial crashes, oligarchy and corruption in the West; persistent poverty in the south; and rising inequality everywhere – have brought elites and ‘establishments’ under unprecedented fire. Yet those swept to power by this discontent are themselves a part of the elite, attacking from within and extending rather than ending its agenda. The New Power Elite shows how major political and social change is typically driven by renegade elite fractions, who co-opt or sideline elites’ traditional enemies. It is the first book to combine the politics, economics, sociology and history of elite rule to present a compact, comprehensive account of who’s at the top, and why we let them get there.
Author: Daniel M. Brinks Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108803172 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 359
Book Description
Analysts and policymakers often decry the failure of institutions to accomplish their stated purpose. Bringing together leading scholars of Latin American politics, this volume helps us understand why. The volume offers a conceptual and theoretical framework for studying weak institutions. It introduces different dimensions of institutional weakness and explores the origins and consequences of that weakness. Drawing on recent research on constitutional and electoral reform, executive-legislative relations, property rights, environmental and labor regulation, indigenous rights, squatters and street vendors, and anti-domestic violence laws in Latin America, the volume's chapters show us that politicians often design institutions that they cannot or do not want to enforce or comply with. Challenging existing theories of institutional design, the volume helps us understand the logic that drives the creation of weak institutions, as well as the conditions under which they may be transformed into institutions that matter.
Author: Daron Acemoglu Publisher: Currency ISBN: 0307719227 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 546
Book Description
Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.
Author: Adewole Musiliu Adeolu Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 37
Book Description
In the essay, we show how the preference of political elites for special status and power translates to an institutional structure that not only maximizes their relative share of social wealth through predation but ensure they keep as wide as possible the gap between actual development and potential development. In exchange for de facto power, their choice of institution is one which yields them less rather than more wealth. Though developmental institutions will yield them more wealth, political elites still avoid choosing the socially optimal institution because the resulting political configuration will turn them into elites with merely de jure political power. We draw on a number of historical and contemporary examples to which our model applies. Drawing on the experiences of nations which have successfully transited from growth-inhibiting to developmental institutions, we isolated factors critical to the attainment of this transition. Factors considered included revolution or the threat of revolution, religion through it impact on human capital, international trade and entrepreneurship, external wars and political competition between countries. In examining barriers in the way of countries yet to transit, we identified ethnic diversity and natural resource endowment. Both have prevented to a large extent the emergence of common constitutional pact across elites belonging to groups with different complexities. The challenge remains overcoming these barriers. New pro-development elites are required to make the initial investments in efforts and organization required to upset the status quo. Only when they start would the larger society follow in their steps to sustain and implement the desired institutional change.
Author: Daron Acemoglu
Author: Daron Acemoglu
Author: G. William Domhoff
Author: G. William Domhoff
Author: Alan Shipman
Author: G.W. Domhoff
Author: Charles Wright Mills
Author: G.W. Domhoff
Author: Daniel M. Brinks
Author: Daron Acemoglu
Author: Adewole Musiliu Adeolu