Inputs and Institutions as Conservative Elements

Abstract:     
This essay examines economic stagnation by extending the argument that capital goods and "conservative elements" to the analysis of social capital and institutions in the post-Reconstruction South. It is argued that the structure of social capital that developed in the South was inappropriate to the formal institutions that emerged as a result of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The tensions between institutions and social capital are examined in the context of racist lynching.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 48

Keywords: institutions, US South, racism, lynching

working papers series