Contra pan-institutionalism. Part I

Abstract

The paper provides a critical assessment of Pan-i nstitutionalism — an approach which tries to explain the course of the world economic history by changes in formal economic and formal political institutions. This approach is mono-causal since for it formal institutions do not simply matter: in fact they are all that matter. The most complete and elaborated versions of Pan-institutionalism were presented i n two famous books — “Violence and social order” by North, Wallis and Wei ngast and “Why nations fail” by Acemoglu and Robinson. Their ideas were taken by the Russian academic community as the last word in the modern economic and political sciences. The paper demonstrates methodological narrowness, conceptual inconsistency and historical inadequacy of Pan-institutionalism. In particular, it fails to provide a coherent explanation of the turning point of the world economic history — the Industrial revolution in England in the mid of XVIII century, i.e. a transition from Malthusian to Schumpeterian economic growth.