Institutional Change and American Economic Groth [Paperback]

This book presents a model for examining problems of institutional change and applies it to American economic development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.This book presents a model for examining problems of institutional change and applies it to American economic development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.This book presents a model for examining problems of institutional change and applies it to American economic development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.This book presents a model for examining problems of institutional change and applies it to American economic development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The authors develop their model of institutional change. They argue that if external economic factors make an increase in income possible but not attainable within the existing institutional structure, new organizations must be developed to achieve the potential in income. Their model is designed to explain the type and timing of these necessary changes in institutional organization. Individual, voluntary cooperative, and governmental arrangements are included in the discussion, although the latter differs considerably from the first two.Part I. The Theory Developed: 1. A theory of institutional change: concepts and causes; 2. The government, coercion, and the redistribution of income; 3. A theory of institutional innovation: description, analogy, specification; 4. Changes in the institutional environment: exogenous shifts and arrangemental innovation; Part II. The Theory Applied: 5. Land policy and American agriculture; 6. Organization and reorganization in the financial markets: savings and investment in the American economy, 18201950; 7. Transportation developments and economic growth; 8. Economies of scale, unsuccessful cartelization, and external costs: some sidelights on the growth of manufacturing in the United States; 9. Institutional change in the service industries; 9. The labor force: organization and educatiolS=