The Research On Economic Ethics Thoughts Of Douglass.C. North

Douglass Cecil North(1920-2015)was an American economist famous for "having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change".As the winner of 1993 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with high reputation,North has been widely interpreted and discussed.However,most researches about his ethics thoughts focus mainly on how morality plays a role in market construction.Based on my tutor's achievements which consider North's ethics as efficiency,this paper analyzes North's economic ethics thoughts more in-depth.First of all,North's ethics thought started from his critique of the rational choice theory.Although the concept of rationality had been highly accepted,North refuted the rational hypothesis due to its lack of ethics.He believed apart from self-interest,human behavior was also motivated by altruism and self-imposed constraints,which may radically change the outcomes under the choice of wealth-maximization.Consequently,he regarded human as social beings instead of economic people.Then,according to his economic history research,North found the ethical judgment has the feature of individualism and historical character,which means that ethical judgment would be different from person to person and from time to time.Consequently,family education,school education and other kinds of education should be encouraged to instruct people to observe discipline self-consciously.Finally,different from neoclassical economists,North treated institutions as non-negligible elements when creating efficient market because of monitoring costs and transaction costs.He insisted that institutions consist of three parts,formal constraints,informal constraints and enforcement.He was convinced that if there were not constraints,civilization wouldn't emerge,thus we can only live in the Hobbesian Jungle.So man can never live without institutions.As a result,following rules is of great morality which should be encouraged.However,it doesn't mean rules equal to efficiency.In contrast,he believed that rules come from self-interest.To sum up,he hope that we can build effective,low-cost enforcement of contracts.The thesis has four parts.The first part introduces research background and significance of the research,and summarizes achievements on this topic.The second part is about North's education background and life experiences.The third part,also the most important part of this thesis,involves in the content of North's economic ethics thoughts.From actors to institutions,then to ideology,this thesis makes a thorough analysis about North's ethic thoughts.The last part makes a brief summarize.North's economic thoughts are in accordance with the law of historical trend.But when compared with Marxist historical materialism,North's economic theory could be better classified as idealism.North emphasized the importance of faith,but he didn't make clear what ethic was and where faith came from.He didn't interpreted how to control ethics,either.Although several problems exist,North's economic thoughts still have great significance on deepening institutional reform and on the construction of socialist market economy institution.