Category Archives: political economy
Democracy and its consolidation — thoughts from The Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
My thoughts are based on the book The Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. The book discusses how the economic conditions of countries affect their paths of political institutions. Here the word “democracy” is defined by Schumpeter to be The institutional arrangements for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire power …
Can good rules be replicated? — thoughts from the proposal of charter cities
My thoughts are from Paul Romer’s (bio) radical idea about charter cities (TED link). He talked about building cities with good rules (institutions) which drives people to move there and businesses to grow, finally accelerating urbanization process in underdeveloped areas around the world. According to Prof. Romer, we need rules which offer more choices to people and more choices to …
Reflections on Collective Action by Russell Hardin
In my economics course State, Law, and the Economy, the professor has assigned us a series of readings to better understand the course materials. I will write reflection articles on them and enhance my own thinking. In the first three chapters of the book Collective Action by Hardin, he synthesized existing literature on two questions: First, what are the preconditions …
