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Institutions and Economic Growth: Sharpening the Research Agenda

After a long hiatus, "institutions" again is a fashionable term in the vocabulary of professional economists. Indeed, there is widespread agreement that the right institutions are the key to economic productivity and progressiveness, but beneath this apparent consensus lies something of a muddle. There are several different definitions of what institutions are and what they do. Most analyses that purport to identify the "right" institutions are superficial and unpersuasive. And, there are serious questions regarding why societies have the institutions they do at any time and their ability to deliberately improve them. My argument is that the conglomerate of things different economists have called institutions largely reflects the fact that many different kinds of structures and forces mold the way individuals and organizations interact to get things done. Many different institutions are needed, and the institutions that are effective are very context dependent. I argue that economic growth involves the co-evolution of technologies and the institutions needed for their effective operation and advancement. Some institutions provide the broad background conditions under which technological change can proceed, and others come into existence and develop to support the important new technologies that are driving growth. Institutional change, and its influence on economic activity, is much more difficult to direct and control than technological change, and hence prevailing institutions are often drags on economic productivity and progressiveness.