Graham Brownlow

Structure and Change: Douglass North's Economics

Douglass North is a pivotal figure in the development of the ‘new’ economic history as well as the ‘new’ institutional economics. However, the relationship between these two aspects of his thinking remains undeveloped in previous critical assessments of Norths work. The relationship is clarified here. The evidence presented indicates that three distinct phases can be distinguished in his writings between the 1950s and the 2000s. The paper relates these changing views to the shifting mainstream within economics and the effects that this shift has in turn had on economic history research. Economic history has adapted to economic research by abandoning some practices associated with the earlier cliometric literature. Furthermore, North is unique to the extent that his recent writings represent something of a convergence with ‘old’ institutionalism.

Back to the failure: an analytic narrative of the De Lorean debacle

There has been a recent identification of a need for a New Business History. This discussion connects with the analytic narrative approach. By following this approach, the study of business history provides important implications for the conduct and institutional design of contemporary industrial policy. The approach also allows us to solve historical puzzles. The failure of the De Lorean Motor Company Limited (DMCL) is one specific puzzle. Journalistic accounts that focus on John De Loreans alleged personality defects as an explanation for this failure miss the crucial institutional component. Moreover, distortions in the rewards associated with industrial policy, and the fact that the objectives of the institutions implementing the policy were not solely efficiency-based, led to increased opportunities for rent-seeking. Political economy solves the specific puzzle; by considering institutional dimensions, we can also solve the more general puzzle of why activist industrial policy was relatively unsuccessful in Northern Ireland.

Towards an Acceptable Level of Violence: Institutional Lessons from Northern Ireland

Institutional and economic development has recently returned to the forefront of economic analysis. The use of case studies (both historical and contemporary) has been important in this revival. Likewise, it has been argued recently by economic methodologists that historical context provides a kind of “laboratory” for the researcher interested in real world economic phenomena. Counterterrorism economics, in contrast with much of the rest of the literature on terrorism, has all too rarely drawn upon detailed contextual case studies. This article seeks to help remedy this problem. Archival evidence, including previously unpublished material on the DeLorean case, is an important feature of this article. The article examines how an inter-related strategy, which traded-off economic, security, and political considerations, operated during the Troubles. Economic repercussions of this strategy are discussed. An economic analysis of technical and organizational change within paramilitarism is also presented. A number of institutional lessons are discussed including: the optimal balance between carrot versus stick, centralization relative to decentralization, the economics of intelligence operations, and tit-for-tat violence. While existing economic models are arguably correct in identifying benefits from politico-economic decentralization, they downplay the element highlighted by institutional analysis.

Should the fiscal powers of the Northern Ireland Assembly be enhanced

ABSTRACT Should the fiscal powers of the Northern Ireland Assembly be enhanced? Regional Studies. Northern Ireland has been characterized by an inability to narrow the persistent economic gap relative to Britain. Some commentators have suggested that regional corporation tax variation may be the ‘game changer’ in closing this gap. This paper draws on a range of studies that help one better understand the historical and institutional context. However, the analysis of tax variation is broader than this. Consideration is given as to which taxes might be the most suitable candidates for devolution. While greater tax variations could certainly complement an emphasis on increased competitiveness aimed at improving economic outcomes, they are no substitute for such a focus. As is often the case in institutional and economic development, issues of sequencing and policy capacity are salient.

A ‘Banana Republic’ Without the Bananas? Political Economy, Irish Exceptionalism and Mary Daly’s Sixties IrelandDalyMary E., Sixties Ireland: Reshaping the Economy, State and Society, 1957–1973 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, 426 pp., £19.99 paperback)

Mary E. Daly’s analysis within Sixties Ireland is a useful corrective to simplistic and selfcongratulatory narratives concerning the place of the ‘long 1960s’ within modern Irish social and economic history. Daly’s interesting discussion covers the period between the First Programme for Economic Expansion (as well as membership of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) in 1957 and Ireland’s entry into the Common Market in 1973. The book is particularly strong concerning interest groups lobbying. Daly outlines, in a highly persuasive fashion, how ‘auction politics’ arrived in Ireland and how squabbles within the civil service (and other public bodies) hindered effective policy formulation and implementation. Daly is excellent in discussing the role of interests and ‘auction politics’ in explaining the pace and direction of change. The ambition and scope of Sixties Ireland ensures that it will undoubtedly serve as a launch pad for many a future Ph.D. thesis as well as providing a core text on undergraduateand postgraduate-level modules in modern social and economic history. Furthermore, students of applied economics, political science, and sociology will also find much to pique their interest. Nevertheless, this reviewer had some reservations, to be discussed in more detail at the end of this review article; for example, Daly is weak on explaining the role of ideas in explaining the evolution of economic policy. Daly’s analysis nevertheless can provide a building block towards constructing an institutional rather than exceptionalist analysis of how economy, state and society was reshaped. Daly, however, appears at points to suggest ‘a middle ground’ between Lee’s exceptionalist argument (i.e. that Ireland uniquely underperformed economically due to among other things perverse incentives) and more recent critiques of the exceptionalist argument. Daly accepts that her focus on tradition and continuity for instance chimes with Lee’s discussion of the way Ireland was shaped by the tenacity of the possessor over the performance ethos (p. 11). Sixties Ireland is the product of over a decade’s work, as the book’s acknowledgements note, the book’s gestation was delayed by Daly’s role as Principal of the UCD

Rebalancing and Regional Economic Performance: Northern Ireland in a Nordic Mirror

Northern Ireland has been characterised as having an excessively large public sector. This characterisation has led some to explain poor regional economic performance in terms of ‘crowding out’. This diagnosis has been used to justify a policy of ‘rebalancing’ and the region copying its southern neighbours lower rate of corporation tax. The experience of large public sectors in the Nordic economies seems however to suggest that higher public spending is not necessarily damaging. This argument is examined critically. Rodriks comparative institutional analysis indicates that in the Nordics a large public sector was the result of building a successful tradable private sector rather than its cause. In terms of the possible ‘economic dividend’ from devolution we suggest that a Hayekian insight is better: no ‘silver bullets’ exist.

The Formation of Terrorist Groups: An Analysis of Irish Republican Organizations

We examine the history of the organization of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and assess whether Republican terrorism reflected the possession of valuable group-specific human capital within the terrorist cell. The analysis is motivated by economic models of the formation of specialized groups. We also note the public-goods co-ordination problem facing terrorist groups, given their inability to use mainstream enforcement mechanisms. Of particular interest are four well-defined historical examples of factionalism within the IRA. The history of Irish republicanism is consistent with the prediction that increasing the opportunities for cell members outside of life in the organization, particularly through amnesty, destabilizes the organization but leaves a hardcore of remaining terrorists. The gap between terrorist characteristics and those belonging to members of wider society is more gradated than predicted.

How do we ensure a useful future for Irish cliometrics

Any book that has a subtitle suggesting that economic history requires nothing less than a resurrection is sure to gain attention. However, will such attention be well deserved? This reviewer thinks it will. Readers of Irish Economic and Social History, as well as economic historians more generally, should find much that is stimulating within Boldizzoni’s bold book. Boldizzoni’s two hypotheses are, first, that cliometricians have taken economic history in the wrong direction and, second, that a resurrected historicism is required if economic history is to be resurrected. This reviewer has reservations about both of these claims and is particularly unconvinced that a revived historicism is needed to give economic history a useful future. The Poverty of Clio provides an important (if flawed) vision of the theory and method of economic history. Yet despite its flaws, it is a book that deserves to be read and debated in research seminar and classroom. A more sophisticated debate on the method of economic history would undoubtedly help in the discussion of Irish economic history. For example, in the context of Irish cliometrics a more sophisticated appreciation of methodology enables us to appreciate that Joel Mokyr’s view on the place of economic theory in the writing of economic history is very similar to the arguments that George O’Brien came to later in his career. Cliometrics is a research programme that seeks to apply economic and econometric techniques to historical topics. Initially, it was a product of the post-war expansion of American universities, but it has subsequently spread around the world.1 Eli Heckscher has the strongest claim to be the founding

Book Review: The Evolution of Institutional Economics: Agency, Structure and Darwinism in American Institutionalism: Geoffrey M. Hodgson; London and New York: Routledge, 2004 vix + 534 pp.,

Trends in African-American Consumerism,” writes that “between the years 1996 and 2001, the collective buying power of black America increased by 64 percent” (252). One wonders, does that take into account inflation? The text does not address this issue; the original data does not appear to be adjusted for inflation. (Doing so in this setting would make the increase 46 percent.) This is a minor issue but one that detracts from a work of political economy. Part VII addresses the role of public policy in education, employment, and training, while Part VIII delves into the topic of reparations to African Americans for slavery and discrimination. There are three excellent articles on this important topic, including pieces by William Darity and Dania Frank, Richard America, and Robert Allen. Allen’s piece deserves credit for discussing reparations specifically in its class dimension:

175 (cloth),

Reform of the International Institutions: the IMF, World Bank and the WTO. Peter Coffey and Robert J. Riley, Edward Elgar 2006, 167 pp. ISBN 0978 1 84376 036 9.