Embedded Autonomy, Political Institutions and Access Orders

Abstract

We construct a model of embedded autonomy, the idea that closeness of bureaucrats and business people may lead to growth-promoting policies by the government, though at the risk of leading to crony capitalism. We analyze how the level of monitoring to control corruption and the weight given to the future affect the nature of the possible outcomes. We explore possible tradeoffs between growth and inclusiveness, and discuss how our model relates to more general concepts of inclusiveness of institutions, as framed by Acemoglu and Robinson, or the nature of access orders, as introduced by North, Wallis and Weingast.