The Restless Innovator

摘要

By the time Douglass North passed away at the age of ninety-five, he had become one of the most widely read and most highly cited economists in all the social sciences. I stress the social sciences because North's work has influenced research not just in economic history-his specialty-but also in political science, sociology, and anthropology as well as in law and philosophy. Moreover, his ideas are an illustration of how radical notions become received wisdom. His most influential claim-that institutions are critical to the process of economic growth-went from being ignored or derided to being critiqued for its oversimplifications to becoming so commonplace a notion that modern-day readers are likely to say, "Didn't we always know that?"