“ Count the economic collapse of Greece as an intellectual victory for Douglass North and his brand of ‘institutions matter’ economics.”
— Tyler Cowen
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Posts tagged with institutions
Costs of the Supermajority Senate
Among other things, Ezra Klein argues that the filibuster contributes to legicide: “It encourages Congress to outsource its responsibilities to independent commissions, the executive branch and its associated agencies, and the courts…”
Organizational & Cultural Change
“81 Words” from This American Life is an incredible story about the American Psychiatric Association ending their practice of defining homosexuality as a mental illness. I listened to it as a case study on how definitions can become powerful institutions and how those institutions can be changed. Highly recommended.
Understanding the Filibuster
On NPR’s Fresh Air, political scientist Greg Koger explains the politics involving the Senate’s filibuster rule and how maybe possibly potentially (and probably why not) it could be changed (via The Monkey Cage).
“ Men are not angels. You cannot ask them to deny their self-interest for long. This is why we have rules, and why our rules should be built to prevent people from pulling this kind of crap.”
— Ezra Klein on GOP obstruction in the legislative process of health care reform
“ It’s also important to have in place systems for effective monitoring of elected officials. A Canadian voter elects one federal official—a Member of Parliament. An American elects four—a President, two Senators, and one Representative. Americans don’t have four times as much time as Canadians to pay attention to what politicians are doing or to learn the issues; our politicians are just being monitored less. When you consider the proliferation of things like independently elected school boards, district attorneys, sherrifs, etc. keep in mind that this diffusion of responsibility is a good way for the egomaniacal to evade responsibility.”
— Matthew Yglesias (via MR)
This is admittedly a seductive argument. But also only part of the story. Voters aren’t in this alone. They’re in this with these self-same ambitious politicians. Particularly, ambitious challengers waiting to enter elections against corrupt incumbents and make loud what otherwise might be quiet.
Oh yeah, and we have parties too.
“ To get to the bottom of this mystery — and it’s one of baseball’s best mysteries — you’ll have to return to the source. You’ll have to return to the 19th century, and find out what baseball men were saying then about throwing left-handed and catching. Because today’s managers and coaches aren’t even thinking about this. They’re merely doing what everyone else has done for more than a century.”
— Rob Neyer on path dependence in baseball
The Fifty States are Hurting Economic Recovery
James Surowiecki on that curious American institution:
The logic of [federalism] was clear: people who are closer to a problem often know better how to deal with it. But matters of a truly interstate nature, like the power grid, can’t be dealt with on a state-by-state basis. And fiscal policy is undermined if the federal government is doing one thing and the states are doing another. It’s a global economy. It would be helpful to have a genuinely national government.
How David Beats Goliath
Malcom Gladwell on how understanding rules trumps received wisdoms typical of boundedly rational play: “…not knowing the conventions of the game turned out to be an advantage.”
Rules and quirks
Baseball as an institution
