Lori D. Smith & Alejandro Portes 
Institutions Count [EPUB ebook] 
Their Role and Significance in Latin American Development

What leads to national progress? The growing consensus in the social sciences is that neither capital flows, nor the savings rate, nor diffuse values are the key, but that it lies in the quality of a nation’s institutions. This book is the first comparative study of how real institutions affect national development. It seeks to examine and deepen this insight through a systematic study of institutions in five Latin American countries and how they differ within and across nations. Postal systems, stock exchanges, public health services and others were included in the sample, all studied with the same methodology. The country chapters present detailed results of this empirical exercise for each individual country. The introductory chapters present the theoretical framework and research methodology for the full study. The summary results of this ambitious study presented in the concluding chapter draw comparisons across countries and discuss what these results mean for national development in Latin America.

Cuprins

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments


1. Institutions and Development: A Conceptual Reanalysis

Alejandro Portes


2. The Comparative Study of Institutions: The ‘Institutional Turn’ in Development Studies: A Review

Alejandro Portes and Lori D. Smith


3. Institutional Change and Development in Argentina

Alejandro Grimson, Ana Castellani, and Alexander Roig


4. Institutional Change and Development in Chilean Market Society

Guillermo Wormald and Daniel Brieba


5. The Colombian Paradox: A Thick Institutional Analysis

César Rodríguez-Garavito


6. Development Opportunities: Politics, the State, and Institutions in the Dominican Republic in the Twenty-First Century

Wilfredo Lozano


7. The Uneven and Paradoxical Development of Mexico’s Institutions

José Luis Velasco


8. Conclusion: The Comparative Analysis of the Role of Institutions in National Development

Alejandro Portes and Lori D. Smith


Appendix: Investigators

Contributors

Index

Despre autor

Alejandro Portes is Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University. He is the author of several UC Press books, including Legacies, Ethnicities, Immigrant America and City on the Edge.Lori D. Smithis completing her doctorate in Sociology at Princeton.