Institutional Change in a Varieties of Capitalism Context - How to Explain Shifts from Coordinated Market Economies towards Liberal Market Economies in the 1990s - An Empirical Analysis of Cross-Country Data

Based on the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) theory the development of economic systems is explored. Studies testing the VoC approach as a whole are rare and they reveal institutional change that contradicts and challenges the theoretically expected developments. During the 1990s, several Coordinated Market Economies (CME) display change towards institutional structures commonly found in Liberal Market Economies (LME). This thesis, relying on data from 16 countries, examines the differences between these changing CMEs and those that still show distinct CME structures at the end of the decade. According to Douglas North's Transaction Cost Theory of Institutional Change the study empirically investigates formal and informal constraints that may be capable of fostering or, respectively, hampering institutional change directed towards LME settings. In a quantitative analysis several formal parameters are considered (political system, property rights structure, juridical elements and economic integration). Moreover, socio-cultural factors are reviewed. It is usually agreed in the institution literature, at least at a theoretical level, that norms and values ought to be taken into account as explanatory factors. Explicit empirical testing can, however, scarcely be found. National differences in values as well as the issue of value change are traced with data provided by the World Values Study.