Avner Greif
{{short description|American economist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2012}}
{{Infobox economist
| name = Avner Greif
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| birth_date = 1955
| birth_place = Tel Aviv
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| nationality = Israel and U.S.
| institution = Stanford University
| field = Economic history
| school_tradition = New institutional economics
| alma_mater = Northwestern University
Tel Aviv University
| doctoral_advisor = Joel Mokyr{{cite journal |last=Greif |first=Avner |year=1991 |title=The Organization of Long-Distance Trade: Reputation and Coalitions in the Geniza Documents and Genoa During the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries |journal=The Journal of Economic History | volume=51 | issue= 2 |page= 459 |doi=10.1017/s0022050700039097|s2cid=154791174 }}
John C. Panzar
William Rogerson
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Avner Greif ({{IPAc-en|g|r|aɪ|f}}; born 1955) is an economics professor at Stanford University, Stanford, California. He holds a chaired professorship as Bowman Family Professor in the Humanities and Sciences.
Greif received his PhD in economics at Northwestern University, where Joel Mokyr acted as his supervisor,{{cite web|url=http://economics.stanford.edu/faculty/greif |title=Avner Greif's Homepage at Stanford Department of Economics |access-date=December 10, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100627080605/http://economics.stanford.edu/faculty/greif |archive-date=June 27, 2010 |df=mdy }} in 1989 and started his career at Stanford University in 1989 until he received tenure in 1994. In 1998 he received a 'genius grant'{{cite web|url=http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0760151.html|title=1998 MacArthur Foundation Awards}} from the MacArthur Foundation. His works deal with economic history and role of institutions in economic development, including analysis of trade in medieval Europe and Levant.
Work
Greif specializes in the study of the social institutions that support economic development, and their history, incorporating game theory into his approach to this large subject. Greif is on the board of trustees of the International Society of New Institutional Economics.
Greif's research on informal institutions in development, particularly regarding traders in medieval Europe, has received significant praise from other economists.{{Cite book |last=Ang |first=Yuen Yuen |url= |title=How China Escaped the Poverty Trap |date=2016 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-1-5017-0020-0 |doi= |jstor=10.7591/j.ctt1zgwm1j |author-link=Yuen Yuen Ang}}{{Rp|page=223–224}} Among his research contributions is the view that during early stages of economic development, informal reputational mechanisms effectively substitute for formal contract enforcement regimes.{{Rp|page=224}}
In Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade (2006), Greif argues that institutions play a central role in economic development:
Studying institutions sheds light on why some countries are rich and others poor, why some enjoy a welfare-enhancing political order and others do not. Socially beneficial institutions promote welfare-enhancing cooperation and action. They provide the foundations of markets by efficiently assigning, protecting, and altering property rights; securing contracts; and motivating specialization and exchange. Good institutions also encourage production by fostering saving, investment in human and physical capital, and development and adoption of useful knowledge. They maintain a sustainable rate of population growth and foster welfare-enhancing peace; the joint mobilization of resources; and beneficial policies, such as the provision of public goods. The quality of these institutional foundations of the economy and the polity is paramount in determining a society’s welfare. This is the case because individuals do not always recognize what will be socially beneficial nor are they motivated to pursue it effectively in the absence of appropriate institutions.{{Cite web|url=http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/political-economy/institutions-and-path-modern-economy-lessons-medieval-trade?format=PB&isbn=9780521671347|title=Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy|website=Cambridge University Press|language=en|access-date=2017-03-11}}
Selected publications
- {{cite journal |last=Greif |first=Avner |year=1993 |title=Contract Enforceability and Economic Institutions in Early Trade: the Maghribi Traders' Coalition |journal=The American Economic Review | volume=83 | issue= 3|pages= 525–48 | url= http://www.stanford.edu/~avner/Greif_Papers/1993%20Greif%20AER%201993.pdf}}
- {{cite journal |last=Greif |first=Avner |year=1994 |title=Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies |journal=The Journal of Political Economy | volume=102 | issue= October 5|pages= 912–50 | url= http://www.stanford.edu/~avner/Greif_Papers/1994%20Greif%20Cultural%20Beliefs%201994.pdf |doi=10.1086/261959 |s2cid=153431326 }}
- {{cite journal |last1=Greif |first1=Avner and David Laitin |year=2004 |title= A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change | journal= American Political Science Review | volume= 98| issue= 4|pages= 14–48| ssrn= 548363 | doi=10.1017/s0003055404041395|citeseerx=10.1.1.294.5684 |s2cid=1983672 |url= http://www.stanford.edu/~avner/Greif_Papers/2004%20A%20Theory%20of%20Endogenous%20Instituitonal%20Change.pdf }}
- {{cite book|author=Avner Greif|title=Institutions and the path to the modern economy: lessons from medieval trade|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2cwCxLA0gNQC|access-date=December 9, 2010|year=2006|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-48044-4}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Greif |first1=Avner|year=2006| title=Family Structure, Institutions, and Growth: The Origins and Implications of Western Corporations|ssrn=875008|journal=American Economic Review|volume=96|issue=2|pages=308–312|doi=10.1257/000282806777212602|s2cid=17749879}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Greif|first=Avner |year=2008 |title= Coercion and Exchange: How Did Markets Evolve? | ssrn=1304204 }}
- {{cite journal |last1=Greif |first1=Avner and Steven Tadelis| year=2010| title=A Theory of Moral Persistence: Crypto-Morality and Political Legitimacy|ssrn=1638662|journal=Journal of Comparative Economics|volume=38|issue=3|pages=229–244|doi=10.1016/j.jce.2010.07.005}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Greif |first1=Avner and Guido Tabellini |title=Cultural and Institutional Bifurcation: China and Europe Compared |ssrn=1532906|year=2010|journal=American Economic Review|volume=100 |issue=2 |pages=135–140 |doi=10.1257/aer.100.2.135 |url=https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:igi:igierp:357 }}
- {{cite journal |last1=Greif |first1=Avner, Murat Iyigun, and Diego L. Sasson|title=Risk, Institutions and Growth: Why England and Not China? |ssrn=1801664
|year=2011}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Greif |first1=Avner, Murat Iyigun, and Diego L. Sasson|year=2012|title=Social Institutions and Economic Growth: Why England and Not China Became the First Modern Economy |ssrn=1783879}} (This paper is an updated version of "Risk, Institutions and Growth: Why England and Not China?")
- {{cite journal |last1=Greif |first1=Avner and Guido Tabellini |title=The Clan and the City: Sustaining Cooperation in China and Europe |ssrn=2101460|year=2015}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Dippel |first1=Christian, Avner Greif, and Dan Trefler |year=2016|title=The Rents From Trade and Coercive Institutions: Removing the Sugar Coating |ssrn=2864727}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Desmet |first1=Klaus, Avner Greif, and Stephen L. Parente |year=2017|title=Spatial Competition, Innovation and Institutions: The Industrial Revolution and the Great Divergence |ssrn=2927147}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Greif |first1=Avner and Guido Tabellini |year=2017 |title=The Clan and the Corporation: Sustaining Cooperation in China and Europe |journal=Journal of Comparative Economics | volume=45 | issue= 1, Feb|pages= 1–45| ssrn=2565120|doi=10.1016/j.jce.2016.12.003 |s2cid=46998982 |url=https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp5233.pdf }}
References
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External links
{{Portal|Biography}}
- [http://www.stanford.edu/~avner/ Avner Greif's Homepage at Stanford]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20100627080605/http://economics.stanford.edu/faculty/greif Avner Greif's Homepage at Stanford Department of Economics]
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Category:Northwestern University alumni
Category:Stanford University Department of Economics faculty
Category:20th-century American economists
Category:21st-century American economists
Category:New institutional economists
Category:Fellows of the Econometric Society
Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences