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Experiments About Institutions
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DOI：10.1146/annurev-economics-091823-031317.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Institutions are a key determinant of economic growth, but the critical junc-tures in which institutions can change are not precisely defined.For example,such junctures are often identified ex post, raising several methodologicalproblems: a selection on the outcome of institutional change; an inability tostudy beliefs, which are central to coordination and thus the process of insti-tutional change; and an inability to conduct experiments to identify causaleffects. We argue that critical junctures are identifiable in real time as mo-ments of deep uncertainty about future institutions. Consistent with thisconception, the papers reviewed (a) examine changes to institutions, i.e., thefundamental rules of the game; (b) are real-time studies of plausible criti-cal junctures; and (c) use field experiments to achieve causal identification.We also advocate for more systematic measurement of beliefs about futureinstitutions to identify critical junctures as they happen and provide an em-pirical proof of concept. Such work is urgent given contemporary criticaljunctures arising from democratic backsliding,state fragility,climate change,and conflicts over the rights of the marginalized.
Keywords:
institutional change
critical junctures
field experiments
fragile states
belief elicitation
Journal
IF:
11.4
Papers:
356
Citations:
4.5K