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Larger Prey, More Predators: Culture as a Constraint on Expropriation

Reading what several economic historians say on the industrial revolution suggests a puzzle concerning economic growth: while historians say that around the time of the industrial revolution property rights security did not improve, economists keep saying that this is the most important factor in economic growth. This leads us to examine the role of culture, and this is what this paper intends to do. “Good” culture is interpreted as an ideology of freedom that implies a negative attitude toward rent-seeking. Incorporating this idea into a simple model of technology diffusion, it becomes possible to differentiate between two roles of informal institutions, and between exogenous and endogenous changes in property rights security. The most important prediction is that these two will have a different effect on the spread of technology. The result can be seen as a contribution to the literature on how different institutions affect economic development.