Exiting a Lawless State

An earlier paper showed that an economy could be trapped in an equilibrium state in which the absence of the rule of law led to asset-stripping and the prevalence of asset-stripping led to the absence of a demand for the rule of law, highlighting a coordination failure. This article looks more caref...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Hoff, Karla, Stiglitz, Joseph E.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	EN
Published:	2012
Subjects:	Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D720 Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government H110 Law and Economics: General K000
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5849

id	okr-10986-5849
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-58492021-04-23T14:02:23Z Exiting a Lawless State Hoff, Karla Stiglitz, Joseph E. Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D720 Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government H110 Law and Economics: General K000 An earlier paper showed that an economy could be trapped in an equilibrium state in which the absence of the rule of law led to asset-stripping and the prevalence of asset-stripping led to the absence of a demand for the rule of law, highlighting a coordination failure. This article looks more carefully at the dynamics of transition from a non-rule-of-law state. The article identifies a commitment problem as the critical feature inhibiting the transition: the inability, under a rule of law, to forgive theft. This can lead to the perpetuation of the non-rule-of-law state, even when it might seem that the alternative is Pareto-improving. 2012-03-30T07:34:50Z 2012-03-30T07:34:50Z 2008 Journal Article Economic Journal 00130133 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5849 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	EN
topic	Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D720 Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government H110 Law and Economics: General K000
spellingShingle	Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D720 Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government H110 Law and Economics: General K000 Hoff, Karla Stiglitz, Joseph E. Exiting a Lawless State
relation	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description	An earlier paper showed that an economy could be trapped in an equilibrium state in which the absence of the rule of law led to asset-stripping and the prevalence of asset-stripping led to the absence of a demand for the rule of law, highlighting a coordination failure. This article looks more carefully at the dynamics of transition from a non-rule-of-law state. The article identifies a commitment problem as the critical feature inhibiting the transition: the inability, under a rule of law, to forgive theft. This can lead to the perpetuation of the non-rule-of-law state, even when it might seem that the alternative is Pareto-improving.
format	Journal Article
author	Hoff, Karla Stiglitz, Joseph E.
author_facet	Hoff, Karla Stiglitz, Joseph E.
author_sort	Hoff, Karla
title	Exiting a Lawless State
title_short	Exiting a Lawless State
title_full	Exiting a Lawless State
title_fullStr	Exiting a Lawless State
title_full_unstemmed	Exiting a Lawless State
title_sort	exiting a lawless state
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5849
_version_	1764396534067101696

Exiting a Lawless State

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