Path-Dependency and Transition Economics Series
Year-long series of workshops on matters of political economy and cultures of production and consumption (see CSC
Calendar for scheduling details).
Organizers: Carl Caldwell (History) and Steve Lewis (Baker Institute for Public Policy)
This year long workshop will gather scholars to discuss the effect of "institutions" on economic development, focussing on transition economics, the economic study of those moments of change, whether consciously engineered or merely observed, as an institutionally situated enterprise. Invited speakers to this workshop series include: David Good (history, Minnesota), Paul Gregory (economics, Houston), and Timur Kuran (economics, USC). Gregory will present his latest work on the Russian economy in mid-October. Good is currently involved in studying the effect of communism by measuring the GNP of the East-Central Europe, the old Hapsburg Empire. His lecture on February 19, 2000 will explore to what extent the current underdevelopment of Eastern Europe is the result of path-dependent structures related to long term underdevelopment and/or of centralized planning after 1945. Kuran's talk, also scheduled in February, will on his work-in-progress, a manuscript that looks at the effects of "collective conservatism" on development over the last millennium, of economic norms and customs in Islamic societies.
Path-dependency is a term used in political science and economics. It refers to the way existing "institutions"-- conceptualized as a set of relatively formalized and repeated actions that objectively -- serve to organize systems of exchange and communication and subjectively, to provide criteria of recognition for participants in such systems and to help determine the ways a society or economy develops. Path-dependency is theidea that historical origins and cultural systems are important and help determine whether attempts at innovation succeed. Transition economics refers precisely to the economic study of those moments of change, whether consciously engineered or merely observed.
Back to top
