HISTORY AND CULTURE:
Why England Developed Healthy Markets-and Spain Didn't*

By Douglass C. North

Over several centuries, England developed free markets-and a large cast of supporting institutions, including private property and an independent judiciary. During the same period, Spain failed to develop any such institutions, enduring economic stagnation instead. Why? It all started with some kings and queens who were short of funds. Nobel Prize-winner and Hoover fellow Douglass C. North explains.

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Douglass C. North is the Hoover Institution's Bartlett Burnap Senior Fellow. His current research activities include research on property rights, transaction costs, economic organization in history, a theory of the state, the free rider problem, ideology, growth of government, economic and social change, and a theory of institutional change.