Course Description
This course applies economic analysis to study three institutions state, law, and theeconomy and their interrelationships. Topics include: Why is the nature of the state? What is
its origin? What are the differences between the liberal and populist conceptions of the
democratic state? What and why are there dilemmas of political organization, conflict, and
succession in the autocratic state? What is the rule of law? How does the political and
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economic order relate to rent seeking groups? What is the difference between the common
law and the civil law as legal systems? What consequences does it have? What is the
modernization hypothesis and the critical juncture theory? How and why to dictatorships
become democracies; and why sometimes the reverse happens? What is the role of
economic, behavioural and structural factors in such transitions? Why are revolutions often
surprises? Does democracy promote growth? Does the type of legal system one inherits
promote growth? What is the relationship between rulers, citizens and interest groups in the
pre-industrial world? The course also adopts an analytic narratives approach to interpret
comparative case histories drawn from Europe, America, China, India, and the Middle East.
HKU
ECON0406 The Economy And The State