Seminar Ideologi Prof. Wihana Kirana Jaya

NEW INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS FOR PUBLIC POLICY:
AN OVERVIEW
PROF WIHANA KIRANA JAYA

FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS
UNIVERSITAS GADJAH MADA

INSTITUTIONS
 Institutions are the humanly devised constraints that structure political, economical

and social interaction.

 They consists of both informal constraints (idioelogy, sanctions, taboos, customs,

traditions, and codes of conduct), and formal rules (constitutions, laws, property
rights)

 Throughout history, institutions have been devised by human beings to create order

and reduce uncertainty in exchange“ (North 1991, p. 97)


NEW INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS
 New Institutional Economics

incorporates a theory of
institutions - laws, rules, customs,
and norms - into economics. It
builds on, modifies, and
extends neoclassical theory.

allocation of scarce
resources among
alternative uses

Neoclassical
Economics

 New Institutional Economics objects to the

notion that the "laws" constructed by
Neoclassical economists were timeless

generalizations and contended instead that
the economic behavior of men, like any
other human activity, had to be analyzed in
terms of the social context in which it was
imbedded.

New
Institutional
Economics

how the institutional structure
evolved and how institutions
reflected the prevailing
social/political/economic
structure

THEORETICAL BUILDING BLOCKS
Principal-Agent Theory
Formal-Informal Institutions Theory
Transaction Cost Theory

Property Right Theory
Social Capital Theory

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE

Source: Vatn (2005)

TYPES OF INSTITUTIONS
Rules

Enforcement mechanism Example

1. Convention

Self enforcement

Language

2. Ethics


Imperative self binding

Being a veterinatian

3. Norms

Social enforcement

Social codes of conduct

4. Formal private rules

Organized private
enforcement

Self imposed rules inside
organisations

5. Law


Organized state
enforcement

Business Law

Source: Ellickson, 1991

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF INSTITUTIONS
 Institutions

 Formal and informal rules at different levels
 Emergence, causes, effects, evolution

 Economic Analysis








Methodological Individualism
Utility maximization (benefits and costs)
Incomplete and costly information
Bounded rationality
Opportunism
Transaction costs

BOUNDED RATIONALITY AND OPPORTUNISM
 Bounded Rationality
 Incomplete information
 Incomplete processing of information

All complex institutions are incomplete
 Opportunism
 Taking advantage of information asymmetries
 Following self interest with the help of guile (lying, cheating)

Institutions need to be safeguarded against opportunistic behavior


FOUNDATIONS OF NIE
 Ronald Coase (Law and Economics)
 1937 – The Nature of the Firm
 1960 – The Problem of Social Costs
 1974 – The Lighthouse in Economics

 Douglass North (Economic History)

 1973 – The Rise of the Western World
 1981 – Structure and Change in Economic History
 1992 – Institutional Change and Economic Performance

 Oliver E. Williamson (Economics and Organization)
 1975 – Markets and Hierarchies
 1985 – Economic Institutions of Capitalism
 1996 – Mechanism of Governance

ANALYTICAL LEVELS OF NIE
LEVEL


L1

L2

L3

L4

Embeddedness:
Informal Institutions, Customs,
Tradition,Norms,
Religion

Institutional Environment:
Formal Rules of the Game – esp.
Property (Polity, Judiciary,
Bureaucracy)

Governance:
Play of the Game – esp. Contract

(aligning Governance Structures
with Transactions

Resource
Allocation and Employment
(Prices and Quantities, Incentive
Alignment)

FREQUENCY
(YEARS)

PURPOSE

often noncalculative,
spontaneous

Social Theory

10² to 10³


10 to 10²

get the Institutional
Environment right, 1st
order economizing

Economics of
Property Rights,
Positive Political
Economy

1 to 10

continuous

get the Governance
structure right, 2nd order
economizing

get the marginal conditions

right, 3rd order

economizing

Source: Williamson (1998)

THEORY

Transaction Cost
Economics

Neoclassical
Economics/Agency
Theory

BRANCHES OF NIE
 Transaction Cost Economics (Coase, Williamson, North)

 Property Rights Theory (Alchian, Demsetz, Furubotn, Bromley, Barzel)
 Contract Theory

 Principal Agent Theory (Stiglitz, Tirole)

 Incomplete Contract Theory (Hart, Moore)

 New Economic History
 New Political Economy

QUESTIONS ADDRESSED BY NIE
 Effects of institutions, e.g. property rights, on
 Resource allocation
 Income distribution

 Incentives (efforts, investments, innovation)
 Transaction costs

 Choice and change (evolution) of institutions
 Designed or spontaneous development?
 Efficiency or distribution oriented
 Reduction of transaction costs

RESEARCH QUESTIONS FOR UU SJSN DAN JKN ???
EFFECTS

L1

L2

L3

L4

Source: Alston 1996 and Williamson 2000)

CAUSES

PROCESSES

Embeddedness:
Informal Institutions, Customs,
Tradition,Norms,
Religion

Embeddedness:
Informal Institutions, Customs,
Tradition,Norms,
Religion

Embeddedness:
Informal Institutions, Customs,
Tradition,Norms,
Religion

Institutional Environment:
Formal Rules of the Game – esp.
Property (Polity, Judiciary,
Bureaucracy)

Institutional Environment:
Formal Rules of the Game – esp.
Property (Polity, Judiciary,
Bureaucracy)

Institutional Environment:
Formal Rules of the Game – esp.
Property (Polity, Judiciary,
Bureaucracy)

Governance:
Play of the Game – esp. Contract
(aligning Governance Structures with
Transactions

Governance:
Play of the Game – esp. Contract
(aligning Governance Structures with
Transactions

Governance:
Play of the Game – esp. Contract
(aligning Governance Structures with
Transactions

Resource
Allocation and Employment
(Prices and Quantities, Incentive
Alignment)

Resource
Allocation and Employment
(Prices and Quantities, Incentive
Alignment)

Resource
Allocation and Employment
(Prices and Quantities, Incentive
Alignment)

Econometrics/Experiments

Econometrics/Case studies

Case studies/Historical narratives

DATA CONSTRAINTS
MEASURMENT

L1

L2

VARIANCE

Simple discrete to complex
often intangible
(e.g. religion, belief system)

Small to medium
(e.g.. 12 main
religions, 6.800 main
languages)

Simple discrete to very complex
(e.g. parliamentary vs.
presidential system,
proposal for EU constitution)

Small to medium
(e.g. 5 legal origins,
192 states, 2005)

L3

Simple discrete to complex:
(e.g. make or buy, complex
contracting, modern corporations)

Large
(e.g. 2 915 482 firms
in Germany, 2003)

L4

Simple continuous
(e.g. compensation rules, prices
and quantities)

Large to very large
(e.g. annual GDP,
daily prices and
quantities at the stock
market)

DATA
SOURCES
Poorly developed
Some official statistics
International surveys

Less developed
Historical records
Documents
Official statistics
International Surveys

Developed
Official statistics
Accounting

Well developed
Official statistics
Accounting

GETTING PUBLIC POLICY EXAMPLE:
TAX AMNESTY INTO NIE PERSPECTIVE
The Four Levels of Institutional Analysis
These rules, norms and customs take a long time to change and are generally
found to have a strong underpinning in the religion, culture, and tradition of
society  sense of belonging towards nation through tax payment

It deals with the lack of well-defined and secure property rights 
property right conflict over tax amnesty
This level is concerned with the contractual relations (contract
laws and enforcement)  transaction cost of tax amnesty
It emphasizes the nature of individual incentives to participate
in different levels of decisions making and activities and to
comply with rules  incentive to participate in tax amnesty

CONT’D
Transaction Cost
 Andreoni (1991): the possibility of a tax

amnesty actually decreasing, rather than
increasing, the efficiency and equity of the tax
system.

Contract
 Stella (1991): if taxpayers are in expectation for

an amnesty, this situation may risk tax
compliance in the long term and also it may
cause negative outcomes on honest taxpayers’
perceptions about justice.

Property Right
 As the probability of an amnesty rises, and thus

the future opportunity to declare any
dishonesty free of penalty, people report less
income.

CONT’D
CRITICAL ASPECT

Distributive
Justice
Social
Contract

FRAMEWORK OF ANALYSIS

Incentive Compatible
Contract

Costly State
Verification
Incentive to Comply

CONT’D
On Distributive Justice …
Distributive justice is concerned with
the fair allocation of resources among
diverse members of a community.
The distribution of economic benefits
and burdens could be affected by
government.

John Rawls
A Theory of Justice
(1971)

Governments continuously make
and change laws and policies
affecting the distribution of
economic benefits and burdens in
their societies.

Tax as a means of resource reallocation in society.
Is it justified to forgive the non-compliance party
over the taxpayer?

CONT’D
On Social Contract …
Social contract occurred
when men would transfer
some or all of their rights
to the government in
order to ensure a
comfortable living.

Man is born free, but he is
everywhere in chains.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Du contrat social ou
Principes du droit politique
(1750)

While each individual has a
particular will that aims for his
own best interest, the
sovereign expresses the
general will that aims for the
common good.

John Locke

Second Treatise of Government (1689)
Tax compliance serves as
a route for state-society relations.

CONT’D
 Taxpayers are encountered with

various factors that cause tax
incompliance:
 Educational level
 Age intervals
 Income level

 Religious perspective

 What affects tax paying culture?

 appropriate conditions for tax evasion and tax

avoidance

 existence of policies designed with short-term

approaches

 regulations for satisfying some certain groups

 belief that tax systems are unfair and unequal,

psychological factors

 inadequacy of inspection and audits by tax authorities,

immature moral obligation

 inefficiency of coercion and deterrence mechanisms
 the lack of state legitimacy

THANK YOU