Institutional economics, development economics and labour economics

Abstract

There are fundamental institutional issues involved in economic development; the pace and nature of development depends on sets of institutions which permit exchange, determine who has rights to what sorts of entitlements (and property) and the values attached to them, control the terms of agreements and provide for their enforcement. At the heart of the link between labour institutions and development lie the economic and social forces inducing workers to undertake productive work on their own account or for others. Workers may be induced to work in many ways: through financial and other economic incentives, positive or negative; through the promise of advancement; through the rewarding nature of the work itself; through socially reinforced motivation; through the threat of dismissal or of reduced levels of employment; through direct coercion. Each of these elements may be associated with specific institutions. These institutions will tend to form coherent patterns of institutions of different types, in turn linked to patterns of control over work and patterns of distribution in the economy as a whole. -from Author