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Meta-Rules
Schreiner, M.
Publication Date: Jun 2001
Published by: Microfinance.com
Document Type: Paper
What are meta-rules? How are they designed? And what is their relationship with development?
Explains: - meta-rules, or rules for making rules, determine the cost of innovation and thus the pace of economic growth
- adapting rules to a changing economic environment through explicit, well-designed meta-rules makes economic growth quicker, less painful, and more certain than adapting rules through chance-based evolution
Defines the relationship between meta-rules and:- development: development may be defined as self-modification that promotes short-term survival without compromising the long-term ability to self-modify further
- death: understanding how the death of individuals can promote the survival of the species sheds light on the role of meta-rules in economic development
Describes the principles and safeguards for the design of meta- rules: - not all rules can be subject to meta-rules
- irreversible decisions (such as treaties with other polities) should be more difficult to approve than reversible decisions
- rent- seeking can be reduced if the (untradable) weight given to any given individual in the political process corresponds to that agent's weight in the social welfare function
Concludes highlighting that meta-rules may backfire. This will occur less often, if meta-rules are designed, rather than left to Nature, and explicit, rather than implied.
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