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Abstract:
As China's economy grows and matures, is it developing institutional patterns that resemble those of other wealthy countries? By examining the origins of modern capitalist institutions among wealthy countries, and how interests structured them, I draw implications for China. Specifically, I find that China resembles continental European capitalism far more than Anglo-American capitalism, and that it is likely to remain this way for the foreseeable future.

comparative finance, financial institutions, political economy, capitalism, China

Abstract:
This paper offers an innovative approach to explaining the varieties of capitalism observed around the world while remaining consistent with Hall and Soskice's Varieties of Capitalism perspective. Specifically, I derive seven capitalist ideal-types based on distributive welfare gains to those actors representing an economy's main factors of production - land, labour, and capital - and the political coalitions they may form. A distinct benefit of the approach offered here is that it can be used to identify which capitalist attributes newly industrializing countries, such as China, are likely to exhibit as their economies grow and mature.

comparative finance, financial institutions, political economy, capitalism, China

Abstract:
Most analyses of modern capitalism focus on bargains struck between workers, managers, and owners (and the different types of firms they inhabit). But considering the substantial influence of institutional inertia on modern outcomes, it is necessary to examine the origins, and to consider which actors were most important in the early construction of capitalist systems. In this regard, farmers have played a critical role. I examine three cases - early 20th Century United States, post-WWII France, and post-WWII Japan - to assess farmers' influence on the origins of contemporary institutions, and find that they have played an important, though frequently overlooked, role.

Abstract:
Despite globalization's pressures on wealthy nations to converge on a single style of capitalism, countries have nevertheless retained distinctive institutional arrangements. To understand the contemporary manifestation of these institutions, we need to examine their origins. This paper argues that the partisanship of government at the time a nation's institutional arrangements were constructed can tell us a great deal about the structure of those institutions today. To test this argument, I develop a measure of partisanship at the time that modern capitalist institutions were created. Statistical tests, supplemented with case studies, reveal that this measure correlates more strongly with many modern economic outcomes than more contemporary measures of partisanship.