Understanding the Process of Economic Change
Language: English
Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2005
Series: Book 5 of 58 - The Princeton Economic History of the Western World
- First Edition
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: Mesquite Booksellers, Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.Mesquite Booksellers
AbeBooks seller since December 4, 2025
Condition: Used - As new
£ 22.56
Quantity: 1 available
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Hardcover. With jacket. xi+187pp. As new condition. Bound in light blue paper and tan cloth, with stamped copper lettering to the spine. (If you order this from outside the United States, we are likely to request an additional payment to help cover the postage.) Every order includes tracking and is wrapped and robustly packaged with care in Tucson, AZ. ~Mesquite Booksellers.
Seller Inventory # 74297
- Title
- Understanding the Process of Economic Change
- Author
- Douglass C. North
- Publisher
- Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
- Publication year
- 2005
- Condition
- As new
- Dust jacket
- As New
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0691118051
- ISBN 13
- 9780691118055
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- Series
- Book 5 of 58: The Princeton Economic History of the Western World
- Seller catalogs
- Economics
In this landmark work, a Nobel Prize-winning economist develops a new way of understanding the process by which economies change. Douglass North inspired a revolution in economic history a generation ago by demonstrating that economic performance is determined largely by the kind and quality of institutions that support markets. As he showed in two now classic books that inspired the New Institutional Economics (today a subfield of economics), property rights and transaction costs are fundamental determinants. Here, North explains how different societies arrive at the institutional infrastructure that greatly determines their economic trajectories.
North argues that economic change depends largely on "adaptive efficiency," a society's effectiveness in creating institutions that are productive, stable, fair, and broadly accepted--and, importantly, flexible enough to be changed or replaced in response to political and economic feedback. While adhering to his earlier definition of institutions as the formal and informal rules that constrain human economic behavior, he extends his analysis to explore the deeper determinants of how these rules evolve and how economies change. Drawing on recent work by psychologists, he identifies intentionality as the crucial variable and proceeds to demonstrate how intentionality emerges as the product of social learning and how it then shapes the economy's institutional foundations and thus its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances.
Understanding the Process of Economic Change accounts not only for past institutional change but also for the diverse performance of present-day economies. This major work is therefore also an essential guide to improving the performance of developing countries.
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Mesquite Booksellers
Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since December 4, 2025
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Mesquite Booksellers specializes in history, philosophy and the social sciences. Most titles are academic press. We offer some heavily discounted Bradt Guides, as a service to the world-curious. We buy collections of academic books; please message us through AbeBooks should you wish to sell yours. More photographs of any book will happily be sent to you upon request. Please message us with any questions!
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History, philosophy and the social sciences. Most titles are academic press.Seller's business information
Mesquite Booksellers
AZ, U.S.A.
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