Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions) |  | Author: Avner Greif
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $37.99
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Seller: GLOBAL-BOOKS
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 510161
Media: Paperback
Pages: 526
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0521671345
Dewey Decimal Number: 381.0902
EAN: 9780521671347
ASIN: 0521671345
Publication Date: January 16, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
It is widely believed that current disparities in economic, political, and social outcomes reflect distinct institutions. Institutions are invoked to explain why some countries are rich and others poor, some democratic and others dictatorial. But arguments of this sort gloss over the question of what institutions are, how they come about, and why they persist. This book seeks to overcome these problems, which have exercised economists, sociologists, political scientists, and a host of other researchers who use the social sciences to study history, law, and business administration.
Book Description
It is widely believed that current disparities in economic, political, and social outcomes reflect distinct institutions. Institutions are invoked to explain why some countries are rich and others poor, some democratic and others dictatorial. But arguments of this sort gloss over the question of what institutions are, how they come about, and why they persist. This book seeks to overcome these problems, which have exercised economists, sociologists, political scientists, and a host of other researchers who use the social sciences to study history, law, and business administration.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Original and engaging May 18, 2007
Claire Mbeki
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
This original book draws into historical studies to illustrate the evolution of economics institutions. The application of economics, history and game theory is very creative and a definitely achievement of the book, in the tradition of North's "Understanding the Process of Economic Change" or other recent followers like Acemoglou's "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and democracy".
The book is divided in four main sections and 14 chapters. First, the author explains institutions as systems in equilibria, applying history and game theory. Then, he enlightens institutional dynamics as historical process (focusing on endogenous change or how history affects institutions and cultural beliefs) only to conclude with a method to apply in sociological and historical studies.
This is a seminal work and Greif's is able to clarify how market institutions work and evolve, how control and oversight institutions are created and how this questions relate to economic history and theory. Moreover, he illustrates them with real examples, like the evolution of medieval trade. It is a careful, readable and historical approach to economic development, applying economic and game theory to explain institutional patterns and change. Interesting!
Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy March 25, 2006
Chiang, Chia-an (Taipei, Taiwan)
4 out of 35 found this review helpful
This is a very good book of historic institutionism, It deserves possession.
 A good and complicated book February 22, 2008
Benjamin Guilbert (Los Angeles/Paris)
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
No question that this book that sums up 10 years worth of articles by one of the most remarkable scholars of his times is a must-read for anybody interested by economics and economic history. That being said the book has its defaults. Some are linked to the difficulty to gather good sources from the medieval Muslim world, but the readers will regret that no statistical approach was attempted even for the European side of the research.
Furthermore, the book is particularly poorly written and often enough it seems as if Greif was just making his sentences complicated to make his work sound smarter than it really was. It is unfortunate and many students will hate him for that. Still the conclusions are often brilliant and the book is well worth buying.
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