The two views of economic and political development share some important similarities.
They both emphasize the need for secure property rights to support investment in human and
physical capital, and they both see such security as a public policy choice. However, the
institutional view sees the pro-investment policies as a consequence of political constraints on
government, whereas the development view sees these policies in poor countries largely as
choices of their – typically unconstrained -- leaders.
In this paper, we revisit these two broad approaches to development in an effort to assess
each one’s empirical validity. Our view is shaped to some extent by the experiences of North and
South Korea, illustrated in Figure 1. Prior to the Korean war, the two countries were obviously
part of one, so it is difficult to think of them as having different histories. They were both 4
exceptionally poor in 1950. Between the end of the Korean war and 1980, both countries were
dictatorships. If institutions are measured by Polity’s “constraints on the executive,” which as we
discuss below is probably the best of the measures commonly used in the literature, then between
1950 and 1980 North Korea had an average score of 1.71, and South Korea 2.16 (out of 7). Yet
South Korean dictators chose capitalism and secure property rights and the country grew rapidly,
reaching per capita income level of US $1589 in 1980. The North Korean dictator, in contrast,
chose socialism, and the country only reached the level of income of US $768 in 1980. Figure 1
also shows that, starting in 1980, South Korea transforms itself into a democracy, while North
Korea remains a dictatorship. While on average, looking over the half century between 1950 and
2000, South Korea obviously had better institutions as measured by constraints on the executive,
these institutions are the outcome of economic growth after 1950 rather than its cause. It would
be wrong to attribute South Korea’s growth to these institutions rather than the choices made by
its dictators.
Our empirical analysis proceeds in five stages. In section II, we revisit three measures of
“institutions” used in the current economic growth literature: risk of expropriation by the
government, government effectiveness, and constraints on the executive. We show that the first
two of these measures by construction do not describe political institutions: they are outcome
measures that reflect the government’s past restraint from expropriation in the first case, and its
quality in the second. These measures do not code dictators who choose to respect property rights
any differently than democratically elected leaders who have no choice but to respect them. Since
these measures confound constraints on government with dictatorial choices, they do not proxy for
institutions, which in their essence are constraints (North 1981). Moreover, these are both 5
subjective measures which rise sharply with the level of economic development, raising severe
doubts that the causality runs from them to growth rather than the other way around.
The two views of economic and political development share some important similarities.
They both emphasize the need for secure property rights to support investment in human and
physical capital, and they both see such security as a public policy choice. However, the
institutional view sees the pro-investment policies as a consequence of political constraints on
government, whereas the development view sees these policies in poor countries largely as
choices of their – typically unconstrained -- leaders.
In this paper, we revisit these two broad approaches to development in an effort to assess
each one’s empirical validity. Our view is shaped to some extent by the experiences of North and
South Korea, illustrated in Figure 1. Prior to the Korean war, the two countries were obviously
part of one, so it is difficult to think of them as having different histories. They were both 4
exceptionally poor in 1950. Between the end of the Korean war and 1980, both countries were
dictatorships. If institutions are measured by Polity’s “constraints on the executive,” which as we
discuss below is probably the best of the measures commonly used in the literature, then between
1950 and 1980 North Korea had an average score of 1.71, and South Korea 2.16 (out of 7). Yet
South Korean dictators chose capitalism and secure property rights and the country grew rapidly,
reaching per capita income level of US $1589 in 1980. The North Korean dictator, in contrast,
chose socialism, and the country only reached the level of income of US $768 in 1980. Figure 1
also shows that, starting in 1980, South Korea transforms itself into a democracy, while North
Korea remains a dictatorship. While on average, looking over the half century between 1950 and
2000, South Korea obviously had better institutions as measured by constraints on the executive,
these institutions are the outcome of economic growth after 1950 rather than its cause. It would
be wrong to attribute South Korea’s growth to these institutions rather than the choices made by
its dictators.
Our empirical analysis proceeds in five stages. In section II, we revisit three measures of
“institutions” used in the current economic growth literature: risk of expropriation by the
government, government effectiveness, and constraints on the executive. We show that the first
two of these measures by construction do not describe political institutions: they are outcome
measures that reflect the government’s past restraint from expropriation in the first case, and its
quality in the second. These measures do not code dictators who choose to respect property rights
any differently than democratically elected leaders who have no choice but to respect them. Since
these measures confound constraints on government with dictatorial choices, they do not proxy for
institutions, which in their essence are constraints (North 1981). Moreover, these are both 5
subjective measures which rise sharply with the level of economic development, raising severe
doubts that the causality runs from them to growth rather than the other way around.
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