CONFERENCE
REPORT
RONALD COASE INSTITUTE
WORKSHOP ON INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS 16 –
21/9/06
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF NEW
INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS CONFERENCE 22 –
24/9/06
THINKING AND DOING CONFERENCE
25 – 26/9/06
ANITA JOWITT[∗]
This report details three linked events held in Boulder
Colorado in September 2006. All related to the subject of New Institutional
Economics (NIE) and brought together a mix of economists, lawyers, political
scientists and others to discuss issues related to this interdisciplinary
subject. Despite the similar subject matter each event had a very different
spirit, and each will be discussed separately.[1]
Ronald
Coase Institute Workshop on Institutional Analysis
This workshop was
a superlative experience, which makes it difficult to describe. Twenty workshop
students from around the world participated. We were a diverse group of
economists, lawyers and social scientists. Most workshop students were PhD
research students or had recently graduated. The workshop faculty, who had all
donated their time and self-funded their participation, were outstanding. They
included Nobel Laureate in Economics Douglass North. Other faculty members were
a balance of “big names” or long established leaders in the filed of
NIE and younger faculty members who are up-and-coming names in the field of
NIE.[2]
I had expected the workshop to involve lectures on what
NIE is, combined with presentation of the projects we had submitted and on which
we were selected to attend. Instead, much of the workshop was somewhat like a
very intensive high caliber graduate school. Having been given lectures on how
to present our ideas and ourselves to the wider NIE audience we were then
divided into small groups to work with faculty members. In these small groups
our ideas were extensively critiqued and stripped down, and we were then given
ideas on how to rebuild our projects so that they would be more focused and
interesting. We then had time to consult with individual faculty for further
feedback. Having gone through this process we all then presented to the wider
group and received further feedback from one faculty discussant, one student
discussant and the group as a whole. Whilst this process was very challenging it
was also intensely rewarding. As well as relearning things about clarity which I
had forgotten to apply to my own work, I also learned a lot of new things about
how to market and target my research – issues which are increasingly
important in this age of information overload.
The ideas of NIE also come
out through the workshop, but they were revealed much more subtly than through
lectures which described NIE. The process of gradual revelation through
examining what made particular presentations valuable and connected to NIE
helped me to appreciate the breadth and depth of the field, and to realize that
there is no monolithic NIE method that can be applied to make research
“good”.
The interdisciplinary nature of NIE was also
emphasised through the process of developing our projects. Having been
critiqued, there was a lot of inter-student support to reformulate project
presentations. This usually came from people from other fields who were generous
in taking time to help and try to understand fields which they did not have any
prior experience – or maybe interest - in. This spirit of collaboration
and cooperation was strengthened by the discussant process, as names were
randomly selected rather than being matched on the basis of prior interest. The
workshop structure, and particularly the discussant process, made me break out
of my own narrow sphere of interest and open both my eyes and my mind to other
topics and disciplines.
The collegial atmosphere of the workshop was
also fostered by the accessibility of the Faculty. During breaks Faculty and
students mingled freely. Each evening we were taken out to dinner and again
Faculty did not hold themselves remote from the students. This was another very
special feature of the workshop. To non-economists there is, no doubt, something
comical about everyone clustering around the famous faculty members for
photographs, but to be able to speak with them was an immense privilege. I am
very grateful to have been privileged to take part in this challenging and
enriching workshop.
10th Annual Conference of
the International Society for New Institutional Economics
(ISNIE)
Having been challenged and extended by the Ronald Coase Institute
I could then sit back and enjoy the ISNIE conference. This conference was
structured as a traditional academic conference with a number of concurrent
sessions running throughout each day. Within each session between three and five
papers were presented. Discussants were assigned to each paper adding further
depth to each paper. As usual when there are concurrent sessions a number of
difficult decisions had to be made. I tended to follow the sessions that were
more focused on law and development, and on issues relating to developing
countries. This was not always an easy choice, as there were several panels
organized by political scientists (rather than lawyers or economists) which
would also have been very relevant to my personal interest in issues relating to
the development of stable democracies. The range of topics and their interest to
legal academics is, I think, an important indicator of the interdisciplinary
nature of NIE. Lawyers interested in subjects as diverse as land law,
intellectual property, trade law, legal history, natural resources law and
corporations would also have found specific sessions relating to their
particular interest.
Two plenary sessions also ran. The first plenary
speech was delivered by Douglass North. He expanded on some of the matters that
had been discussed at the Ronald Coase Institute. His speech, entitled
‘The Natural State: or why economic development is so difficult to
achieve’ again highlighted the need to acknowledge that the process of
change is culturally conditioned and so will be different in each situation.
North also participated in sessions as a discussant and audience member. His
humble and down-to-earth insightfulness serve as an inspiration. The second
plenary, delivered by Benito Arrunada discussed ‘Manufacturing Property
Rights’. This speech would be of particular interest to lawyers interested
in the comparative analysis of property law systems. This speech also reminded
us of the need to look beyond the formal institutions (or state laws) in order
to understand how laws are actually implemented and what impact they
have.
Thinking and Doing
Conference
The final conference in this group of events was the
First International Thinking and Doing Conference. This organization is led by a
Ronald Coase Institute graduate and aims to bring together young researchers who
are looking at broad issues relating to law, economics and policy. Peer support
and discussion and feedback to improve each others work was a major aim of this
conference. This was achieved through a process in which a limited number of
written papers were selected for presentation. Two discussants were assigned to
each paper and considerable time was allowed for further discussion and
questions by the group. This process ensured that all papers received a generous
amount of feedback.
As only 16 papers were presented the conference was
not split into concurrent sessions, thereby avoiding the dilemma of choosing
which session to attend. This also helped to foster a group spirit. This,
combined with the relative youth of most presenters and discussants, helped to
ensure that the conference was a more light hearted affair than the larger ISNIE
conference.
As with the other conferences one of the major benefits was
the cross fertilization of ideas from other disciplines. Whilst it was difficult
for me to understand some of the papers that were grounded in econometrics there
were a group of papers that were particularly related to my interest in legal
pluralism and which deserve particular mention. Angela Stanton’s paper
titled ‘A model for trust and reciprocity’ was grounded in the new
field of neuro-economics. Whilst her research approach is very different to that
used by lawyers, the basic question of how social context trust (or trust within
interpersonal relationships) is established and how this influences individuals
behaviours is very relevant to questions of the extent to which individuals use
law to order interpersonal relationships. Marina Dodlova’s paper titled
‘Gift-exchange in sustaining bureaucracies’ explored similar issues,
although from a different theoretical perspective and may also help lawyers to
understand how interpersonal relationships may undermine or alter the rules laid
down by the formal legal system. Finally Arina Matvejeva’s paper titled
‘Patent Rights Index in Countries in Transition’ built up a model
for indexing formal laws relating to patents in different countries. This
approach could be used for comparing formal laws across countries in a number of
areas. At the University of the South Pacific, where our examination of the
formal laws is necessarily comparative, this analytical tool could be
particularly
helpful.
CONCLUSION
Attending
all three events was somewhat like running a marathon and by the end of the
Thinking and Doing Conference the group of people who had started at the Ronald
Coase Institute and attended all three events were somewhat overloaded. However,
the opportunity to listen to and work with such a large group of outstanding
scholars does not come along often, and nor does the opportunity to have your
own work thoroughly critiqued. I came away from these events enthused by the
possibilities offered by NIE as a discipline and with a list of future research
projects. In 2007 the Ronald Coase Institute Workshop on Institutional Analysis,
and the 11th Annual ISNIE Conference
and the 2nd Thinking and Doing
Conference will be held from June 16 - 25 in Reykjavik, Iceland. Researchers
looking for interdisciplinary approaches for understanding the interaction
between law, society and development in the Pacific should find real value in
these events.
[∗] Lecturer in law, University of the South Pacific. I was able to attend these events through the awarding of a fellowship by the Ronald Coase Institute and through partial funding by the USP School of Law. I gratefully acknowledge both of these sources of support.
[1] Links to websites, which provide papers and other information about each event, have been included (click on headings). If there is further information I can provide my email is Jowitt_a@vanuatu.usp.ac.fj.
[2] The full list of faculty were Alexandra Benham, Lee Benham, Sebastián Galiani, Scott Gehlbach, Philip Keefer, Zeny Kranzer, Gary Libecap, Claude Ménard, Henry Mohrman, Douglass North, John Nye, Mary Shirley, Alberto Simpser, Oliver Williamson, and Decio Zylbersztajn.