The Grunberg Lecture Series | Tenth Lecture

April 4, 1997

Douglass_C_North_1
Professor Douglass C. North
Luce Professor of Law and Liberty,
Department of Economics
Washington University in Saint Louis
Nobel Prize in Economics, 1993

"What Makes Economies Grow?: A Study of the Transition Economies"

Professor North received the Nobel Prize for pioneering the use of modern statistical methods to re-examine how economies developed in the past. His work as an economic historian has stressed the importance of institutions in determining whether countries are rich or poor and investigates why political and economic institutions have evolved over time. The relevance of institutional change to growth is especially clear today as the countries of Eastern Europe struggle to make the transition to market economies.