Professor Kuran Gives Keynote Address at ISNIE Conference

Professor Kuran Gives Keynote Address at ISNIE Conference

25 June 2014 9:25AM

Professor Timur Kuran was a keynote speaker at the 18th annual conference of the International Society for New Institutional Economics (ISNIE) this weekend at Duke Law School.

More than 200 international scholars from a range of disciplines convened for the event. The conference, which began June 19, brought together economist, legal scholars, organizational theorists, political scientists, and other social scientists from 20 countries. Over three days of panel discussions and two keynote addresses, they considered cutting-edge scholarship relating to how institutions and organizations evolve, how they operate, and how they may be optimally designed and supported.

“The quality of the papers was extremely high and many sessions were fascinating,” said Kuran, Professor of Economics and Political Science and Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. “I also enjoyed reconnecting with old friends with whom I share intellectual interests.”

Kuran studies how institutions affected the evolution of markets in Islamic countries, tracking them over hundreds of years. In his keynote speech, he used evidence from 17thcentury Ottoman Istanbul as an example to address how the socioeconomic elite have much to gain from instituting impartially enforced rules in financial markets.

“In advanced economies, interest rates generally vary inversely with the borrower’s socioeconomic status, because status tends to vary inversely on default risk,” he said. “In particular, it requires lenders to be able to sue a borrower who reneges on his debt in a court that is not partial toward elites. Where the law is biased in favor of elites, privileged socioeconomic may pay more for capital. This is because they pose a greater risk to lenders who have limited means of punishing them.”

 

Scholars from across Duke University participated in the conference. Duke Law Professors Matthew Adler, Mathew McCubbins, and Barak Richman serve on the program committee as does Professor Manuel Adelino from the Fuqua School of Business.

Duke Law School, the Fuqua School, the Department of Economics, the Department of Political Science, and the Social Science Research Institute all were co-sponsors of the conference.