Electoral Demand for Secure Private Property: On the Edge of Human Capital and Institutions

Abstract

Discussions concerning the issue of distinguishing the influences of human capital and institutions on economic growth pose the question of the boundary between these two notions. Education, traditions, and other factors have an impact on people’s readiness to acknowledge and support certain distinctions. The respect of agents in the surrounding milieu for private property exerts a significant influence on the possibilities of taking advantage of its products. Significant differences in these factors in post-Socialist countries have found their expression in differences in electoral preferences. These last predetermined the distinctive features both of the preferences of legislators, and of the outcomes of the introduction and enforcement of what were often pieces of similar legislation. In any case, the connections between variability in preferences and economic indicators turn out to be statistically significant.

Evidently, it makes sense to classify civic qualifications, or moral norms which have become established among market agents, together with the special components of human capital. But then looking for the boundary between such a component of human capital and institutions properly so called seems to make rather little sense.

Keywords: property rights, human capital, demand for property rights

JEL Classification: D72, K11, N14, N15, P14, P16