Warum sind einige Länder so viel reicher als andere? : Zur institutionellen Erklärung von Entwicklungsunterschieden

Huge income differences across countries are a striking feature of the world economy today. Such developmental differences did not exist before the "epoch of modern economic growthʺ (Kuznets). Therefore the question arises why some countries are economically much more successful than others. The paper discusses how neo-institutionalist economics answers this question. This school of thought views goodʺ institutions as the fundamental cause of differences in economic development, defining good institutions as those that secure property rights. While it does not question the relevance of good institutions altogether, the paper proposes putting more emphasis on the role of technological progress. Developmental differences are largely determined by technology. It is true that technological progress depends on secure property rights for inventions, but continuous advances in science require a cultural environment that motivates people to transcend the limits of existing knowledge. If one dismisses the basic assumption of neo-classical growth economics that technological progress is autonomous and homogenous, two ways of conceptualizing a heterogeneous technology remain. Either technological progress is a private good whose rate of production is dependent on country-specific investments in research and development, or it is equally open to all countries, but cannot fulfil its potential because of political and cultural barriers. The paper sympathizes with the latter assumption and concludes with a discussion of its political consequences.