Dynamics of Social, Political, and Economic Institutions

Organized by Avinash Dixit, Eva M. Meyersson Milgrom, Paul Milgrom
December 3-4, 2010
Beckman Center, Irvine, CA

Meeting Overview

Study of institutions that underpin political, social, and economic interactions is flourishing in all social sciences. Political scientists face the perennial issue of balancing the needs of effective decision-making and the necessary constraints on arbitrary exercise of power. Economists have begun to examine the formal and informal legal structures that protect property rights and enforce contracts. Scholars of law and jurisprudence have contributed to our understanding of institutions in both of these fields: constitutions and legislative and case law, as well as arbitration and other mechanisms of private order that function under the shadow of the law. Sociologists study the networks that constitute the structure of social interactions and the norms that govern their function. Anthropologists examine the workings of these institutions and organizations in different cultures and compare them across cultures; historians do the same for past societies.

Session I: Norms, customs

Peyton Young, Social Norms and Norm Dynamics                         Discussant:   Tomás Rodríguez Barraquer, Stanford University

Paul Romer, The Startup Dynamic                            Discussant:  Paul Milgrom, Stanford University

Kate Stovel,   "Impossible" Institution?  Dynamics of Brokerage

Session II:  Alternative Paths to Institutional Change

Bruce Carruthers, Institutional Dynamics: When Is Change Real Change?                    Discussant:  Eva Meyersson Milgrom, Stanford University

Presentation not available

Jean-Philippe Platteau, Confronting Oppressive Customs: Reformism versus Radicalism                     Discussant:  Alexander Wolitzky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Leonard Wantchekon, The Democratic Legacy of Anti-Colonial Customs                    Discussant:  Jean Ensminger, California Institute of Technology

Gerard Roland, Culture, Institutions And The Wealth Of Nations                    Discussant:  David Laitin, Stanford University

Saturday, December 4

Session III: Institutions in Developing Countries

Marcel Fafchamps,  Development and the Assignment of Workers to Tasks                Discussant:  Moussa Blimpo, Stanford University

 

Lena Edlund, The Problem with Polygyny: Paternal Age and Human Capital Accumulation                         Discussant:  Pablo Querubin, Harvard University

Steven Krasner, State-Building: Outside In                         Discussant:  Avinash Dixit, Princeton University

Session IV: Legal Institutions

Gillian Hadfield, What is Law?  A Coordination Model of the Characteristics of Legal Order                      Discussant:  Antoine Lallour, Stanford University

Katarina Pistor, Resolving Contested Property Rights                     Discussant:  Barak Richman, Duke University

Session V: States and Constitutions

Georgy Egorov and Konstantin Sonin, A Political Model of Social Evolution                    Discussant: Yair Livne, Stanford University

Roger Myerson, A Theory of Leadership and State-Building                    Discussant:   Renee Bowen, Stanford University