Economic History And Development Policy: Douglass North’S Disillusionment With Simplistic, Market-Oriented Policies, 1950s–1990s

This paper examines Douglass North’s evolving recommendations for economic development policy. Using archival material, it traces how North’s historical analysis of economic growth shaped his policy prescriptions from the start of his career through the 1990s. In the 1950s and 1960s, North attributed US economic growth primarily to trade and productivity gains driven by the United States’s competitive market system and international trade, leading him to advocate market-oriented reforms. But from the 1970s onward, recognizing the critical role of institutions through his study of institutional history, he emphasized reducing transaction costs through extensive reforms in property rights and political systems. His archives reveal how his historical understanding of development made him increasingly skeptical of simplistic, market-oriented reforms, and underscore the originality of his policy proposals for Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s.