Chris Kingston
Amherst College

Kingston

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(Thursday, 22nd May 2008)

Title : Historical studies of institutional change

The first goal of this workshop is to highlight a number of areas where, despite recent advances, our theoretical understanding of the process of institutional change remains very incomplete.  There is a great need for empirical research to guide the development of theories of institutional change, and economic history provides many exciting opportunities and abundant raw material for such research.  The second aim of the workshop is to illustrate and discuss the process of carrying out research on institutional change in economic history.  These themes will be motivated and illustrated with reference to a number of recent papers, including those listed below.

Bibliographical references :

Must read reference : Kingston, Chris: “Marine Insurance in Britain and America, 1720-1844: A Comparative Institutional Analysis”.
Journal of Economic History 67(2), June 2007.
Link

Casari, Marco: “Emergence of Endgoenous Legal Institutions: Property Rights and Community Governance in the Italian Alps”,
Journal of Economic History
67(1), March 2007.
Link.

Kim, Sukkoo: “Institutions and U.S. Regional Development: A Study of Massachusetts and Virginia”,
NBER Working Paper 13431, September 2007
Link.

Kingston, Chris & Gonzalo Caballero, “Comparing Theories of Institutional Change”, working paper, 2008.
Link