The New Comparative Political Economy

With the collapse of communism in the late 1980s the field of comparative political economy has undergone major revision. Socialism is no longer considered the viable alternative to capitalism it once was. We nowrecognize that the choice is between alternative institutional arrangements of capitalism. Progress in the field of comparative political economy is achieved by examining how different legal, political and social institutions shape economic behavior and impact economic performance. In this paper we survey the new learning in comparative political economy and suggest how this learning should redirect our attention in economic development.