This article first provides a game-theoretic, endogenous view of institutions and then applies the idea to identify the sources of institutional trajectories of economies development in China, Japan, and Korea. It stylises the Malthusian phase of the East Asian economies as a peasant-based economies in which small conjugal families self-managed their working times between farming on small plots—leased or owned—and handcrafting for personal consumption and markets. It then compares institutional arrangements across these economies that sustained otherwise similar economies. It characterises the varied nature of the political states of Qing China, Tokugawa Japan and Yi Korea by focusing on the way agricultural taxes were enforced. It also identifies different patterns of social norms of trust that were institutional complements to, or substitutes for, the political states. Finally, it traces the path-dependent transformations of these state-norm combinations along subsequent transitions to post-Malthusian phases of economic growth in the respective economies.

Selection from the report (Foreword by the commission co-chairs):

This report summarizes how America’s K-12 education system, taken as a whole, fails our nation and too many of our children. Our system does not distribute opportunity equitably. Our leaders decry but tolerate disparities in student outcomes that are not only unfair, but socially and economically dangerous. Our nation’s stated commitments to academic excellence are often eloquent but, without more, an insufficient response to challenges at home and globally. The data the commission reviewed make clear that officials, administrators and constituents at all levels of government must attack our education failings as a moral and economic
imperative.

What steps must we take in the years to come, and toward what ultimate destination? The direction of school reformers over the past 30 years has been guided by the polestar of world-class standards and test-based accountability. Our country’s effort to move in this direction has indeed led to important progress. But it has not been enough. The next stage of our journey will require coordinated reform efforts in all the states, and their 15,000 school districts, together with federal agencies—efforts focused on laying the foundations for far more widespread and equitable
opportunities for students throughout the nation. Out of many efforts, one united effort can create the opportunity that should be the birthright of each and every American child.

This paper analyzes the causes, responses, and consequences of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident (March 2011) by comparing these with Three Mile Island (March 1979) and Chernobyl (April 1986). We identify three generic modes of organizational coordination: modular, vertical, and horizontal. By relying on comparative institutional analysis, we compare the modes' performance characteristics in terms of short-term and long-term coordination, preparedness for shocks, and responsiveness to shocks. We derive general lessons, including the identification of three shortcomings of integrated Japanese electric utilities: (1) decision instability that can lead to system failure after a large shock, (2) poor incentives to innovate, and (3) the lack of defense-in-depth strategies for accidents. Our suggested policy response is to introduce an independent Nuclear Safety Commission, and an Independent System Operator to coordinate buyers and sellers on publicly owned transmission grids. Without an independent safety regulator, or a very well established “safety culture,” profit-maximizing behavior by an entrenched electricity monopoly will not necessarily lead to a social optimum with regard to nuclear power plant safety. All countries considering continued operation or expansion of their nuclear power industries must strive to establish independent, competent, and respected safety regulators, or prepare for nuclear power plant accidents.