USC Dornsife College Of Letters Arts and Sciences

University of Southern California

The Economic Performance of Civilizations: Robert Woodberry

The Economic Performance of Civilizations: Robert Woodberry

The Economic Performance of Civilizations: Robert Woodberry

The Economic Performance of Civilizations: Roles of Culture, Religion, and the Law

The purpose of this conference is to make progress toward identifying and isolating the effects of religion, cultures and legal systems on the economic trajectories of civilizations. The participants belong to several disciplines and they vary greatly in geographic emphasis. The civilizations to be studied comparatively include those of East Asia, the Middle East, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. Contexts to be emphasized include commercial organizations, public finance, state formation, property rights and industrial organizations. The conference is co-sponsored by the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute.

Session I: Studying the Economic Performance of Civilizations

Chair: Dan Klerman

Discussants: Naomi Lamoreaux and Robert Woodberry

Presenters:
Timur Kuran, Professor of Economics and Political Science, and Gorter Family Professor in Islam and the Social Sciences, Duke University “Explaining the Economic Trajectories of Civilizations: Musings on the Systemic Approach”

Richard Swedberg, Department of Sociology, Cornell University Civilizations, Economies and Social Mechanisms: Some Central Themes