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The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

The paper aims to investigate the relationship between institutions and economic growth in developing countries, considering the role of financial inclusion, education spending and military spending.

The study employs dynamic panel analysis, specifically two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM), on a sample of 61 developing countries over the period 2009–2020.

The results confirm that weak institutional quality, weak financial inclusion and increased military spending are barriers to economic growth, conversely, increased spending on education and gross capital formation contribute to economic growth in developing countries. Regarding the specific institutional factor, we find that corruption, ineffective government, voice and accountability and weak rule of law contribute negatively to growth.

The study calls for strengthening institutions so that the financial system supports economic growth and suggests increasing spending on education to improve access to and the quality of human capital, which is an important determinant of economic growth.

The study contributes to scarce literature by empirically analyzing the relationship between institutions and economic growth by considering the role of financial inclusion, public spending on education and military spending, factors that have been ignored in previous studies. In addition, the study identifies the institutional dimension that contributes to reduced economic growth in developing countries.

The paper assesses the role of natural resource rents in Nigeria's economy through the channel of institutional quality.

The analysis is done with the use of autoregressive-distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration, vector error correction model (VECM), Granger causality test and cointegrating regression over the period 1996–2019.

Findings support the notion that overreliance on natural resources could exacerbate the growing number of dysfunctional economic outcomes in the country. The study confirms that a mix of weak governance quality and natural resource rents could have a negligible effect on economic growth and possible retardation impact on the economy in the long run as well as in the short run. The evidence further reveals that there is unidirectional causality running from the interaction term to growth, suggesting that growth trajectory could be jointly determined by natural resource rents and the quality of institutions.

The divergent arguments associated with the mechanisms of resource curse in each of the resource-rich countries offer ample support for the contention that economic outcomes in resource-abundant states may not be a product of resource windfalls per se, but rather the quality of governance or ownership structure. Hence, the ultimate aim of the analysis is to further understanding on the link between resource rents and growth in Nigeria via governance channel.

The objective of this study is to analyze the influence of institutional quality on the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using a data set comprising 45 African nations during the timeframe 2000 to 2020.

The data are divided into two periods, with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) data covering the years 2000–2015 and the SDGs data spanning from 2015 to 2020. Controlling for other factors, the researcher employs an index of institutional quality and applies the generalized method of moments (GMM) method to analyze the data.

The findings demonstrate a noteworthy inverse relationship between institutional quality and the achievement of both the MDGs and SDGs. The findings reveal a significant and positive link between economic growth and the achievement of the MDGs, while the impact on the SDGs is shown to be insignificant. Population growth significantly drives the SDGs. The results further reveal that trade openness and industrialization contribute positively to the achievement of both the MDGs and SDGs.

The findings emphasize the importance of improving institutional quality, promoting economic growth and supporting trade openness and industrialization for sustainable development in African countries.

The contribution of the study is twofold. Firstly and to the best of the author’s understanding, this research marks an initial endeavor to empirically investigate the nexus between institutional quality and the SDGs in the context of Africa. Secondly, it adds novelty to the literature by examining how institutional quality influences both the SDGs and their precursor the MDGs, providing insights into the actual contribution of institutions to development within the framework of these two major global compacts.

In this study, we question: how do the social costs of failure interact with gendered institutions to affect the early stage entrepreneurship activity? We address this question by employing the institutional theory and a unique dataset of 286,989 entrepreneurs across 35 countries.

To test our hypotheses, we use a multilevel modeling analysis that nests individual entrepreneurs within the countries. To capture individual and country-level variables, we constructed a unique dataset that combines data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), European Flash Barometer (EUFB), World Bank Development Indicator (WDI), World Bank Doing Business Report (WBDB) and World Economic Forum (WEF).

Our analysis confirms that higher levels of the country-level gender equality positively correlate with the early-stage entrepreneurship activity of women. Moreover, we find that this positive relationship is amplified in institutional environments with high social costs of failure, suggesting that societal intolerance for failure can exacerbate the negative effect of gender inequality on the participation of women in entrepreneurship.

Our research contributes to academic interest on the role of legitimacy in women entrepreneurship and is of particular interest to international business scholars, seeking a better understanding of multidimensional construction of institutional frameworks across countries. In this study, we set out to address an important research question: how do the social costs of failure interact with gendered institutions to affect entrepreneurship activity? Our study provides a comprehensive portrait of gendered institutions by including the framework conditions of education, healthcare and political power. We found that in societies with gender equality, the likelihood of individuals engaging in the early-stage entrepreneurship activity is higher and that the positive relationship is strengthened in national environments with high social costs of failure.

Our study findings underscore the need for government policies addressing global gender gaps in economic empowerment. In particular, policies assisting women in obtaining education in high-growth industries like information technology or providing funding to women-dominated industries may foster activity for women seeking to do business in such industries. Such policies connect the early-stage entrepreneurship activities with gender equality concerns and initiatives.

Regarding the social costs of failure construct, specifically, prior studies generally focus narrowly on the context of failed entrepreneurs. We cast a wider net on men and women entrepreneurs’ entry decisions (irrespective of prior experience with business failure) and provide new views on the effects of social costs of failure on entrepreneurial ecosystems. We also extend the research on the legitimacy of women as entrepreneurs with the gender equality construct.

Unlike previous studies, which often focus on the “3Ms” of market, money and management, our research adopts a more holistic perspective. We recognize that the opportunities and challenges faced by entrepreneurs are shaped not only by individual skills and resources but also by the broader macroenvironment. By incorporating the framework conditions of education, healthcare and political power, alongside the intricate interplay of social costs and norms, our study paints a comprehensive picture of the landscape of female entrepreneurship.

This study investigates the impact of financial development, measured by the ratio of broad money to gross domestic products, on de jure central bank (CB) independence (CBI) in 17 countries in the Asia–Pacific region from 1995 to 2014.

This study uses the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) approach, which is suitable since the CBI equation suffers from contemporaneous correlation, serial correlation and heteroscedasticity.

The FGLS results suggest a positive association between CBI and financial market development (FMD). This relationship is confirmed when estimating different indicators of de jure CBI and adopting the panel-corrected standard error estimate. However, the statistical significance of FMD is not supported when the ratio of domestic credit to the private sector to GDP is measured.

It is significant to have a developed financial system to foster a better CBI. Moreover, it is important to measure the influence of financial market players on the operations of a CB.

The financial market in the Asia–Pacific has improved over the years. Hence, the results show the determinants of CBI in the Asia–Pacific, especially the role of FMD.

The main purpose of this research is to examine the impact of institutional quality and sectoral employment on environmental degradation in developing countries. This paper also re-examined the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis and estimated the long run impact of explanatory variables on CO₂ emissions.

In this paper, the balanced panel data for the period 2002–2016 was used based on data availability and applied two-step SYS-GMM estimators.

The results showed that institutional quality such as government effectiveness (GE) and the rule of law (RL) reduce CO₂ emissions and promote environmental quality in developing countries. Interestingly, the authors found new evidence that employment in agriculture and industry has a positive impact on pollution, while employment in the service sector was negatively associated with CO₂ emissions, and the validity of the EKC hypothesis was confirmed. In addition, the research suggests that strong institutional frameworks and their effective implementation are the most important panacea and should be treated as a top priority to counteract environmental degradation and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

This is the first study to examine the short run and long run effects of institutional quality and sectoral employment on environmental degradation using the balanced panel data for a large sample of developing countries. This paper also used a special technique of Driscoll and Kraay standard error approach to confirm the robustness results and showed the different roles of sectoral employment on environmental quality.

Going beyond the traditional approach of formal and informal institutions as antecedents of entrepreneurship (directly) and development (indirectly), this paper seeks to explore knowledge institutions as a necessary input for entrepreneurship and the development of societies.

Institutional economics lenses are utilized to observe other factors (e.g. the number of R&D staff and researchers from the public sector) that involve laws and socialization processes, which at the same time create knowledge useful for entrepreneurs and society. These ideas are tested through a sample of 281 observations from 17 autonomous communities and two autonomous cities in Spain. The information coming from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), Ministry of Economics, Industry, and Competitiveness, and INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadística), was analyzed through 3SLS, which is useful for a simultaneous equation strategy.

Knowledge institutions such as the number of R&D staff and researchers from the public sector are found positively associated with entrepreneurship, which is a factor directly and positively linked to economic development across Spanish regions.

The findings help the operationalization of other institutions considered in institutional economics theory and its application to entrepreneurship research. Moreover, the results bring new insights into the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship in the public sector, in which the institutional analysis is implicit.

Despite the longstanding male dominance in the socio-politico-economic spheres, recent decades have witnessed remarkable improvements in gender inclusion. Although the issue of gender inclusion has been widely documented, answers to the question of whether institutional arrangements and information technology shape gender inclusion remain contentious. This study, therefore, empirically examines the effects of institutional quality and ICT penetration on gender inclusion on a global scale.

To control for the endogeneity of modeled variables and cross-sectional dependence inherent with large panel datasets, the study employs the Driscoll-Kraay Fixed Effects (DKFE) and the system Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimators for a panel of 142 countries from 1996 to 2020.

The empirical findings from the DKFE and system GMM estimators reveal that strong institutions significantly enhance gender inclusion. Moreover, by disaggregating institutional quality into various governance indicators, we show that besides corruption control, which has a positive but insignificant effect on women’s empowerment, other governance indicators significantly enhance gender inclusion. Furthermore, there is evidence that various ICT measures promote gender inclusion.

The study results suggest that policymakers in developing countries should implement stringent measures to curb corruption. Moreover, policymakers in low-income countries should create avenues to facilitate women’s access to ICTs. Hence, policymakers in low-income countries should create and equip ICT training centers and render them accessible to all categories of women. Furthermore, developed countries with high-tech knowledge could help developing countries by organizing free training workshops and sensitization campaigns concerning the use of ICTs vis-à-vis women empowerment in various fields of life.

The present study fills a significant research gap by comprehensively exploring the nexuses between governance, ICT penetration, and the socio-politico-economic dimensions of gender inclusion from a global perspective. Besides the paucity of studies in this regard, the few existing studies have either been focused on region and country-specific case studies in developed or developing economies. Moreover, this study is timely, given the importance placed on gender inclusion (SDG5), quality of institutions (SDG16), and ICT penetration (SDG9) in the 2015–2030 global development agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model that will demonstrate how the integration of Salam (exclusive agricultural commodity trade) with Takaful (micro-Takaful – a subdivision of Islamic insurance) and value chain can address major challenges facing the agricultural sector in Kano State, Nigeria.

The study conducted a thorough and critical analysis of relevant literature and existing models of financing agriculture in Nigeria to come up with the proposed model.

The findings indicate that measures undertaken to address the major challenges fail. In view of this, this study proposed Bay-Salam with Takaful and value chain model to solve a number of challenges such as poor access to financing, poor marketing and pricing, delay, collateral requirement and risk issues in order to avail farmers with easy access to finance and provide effective security to financial institutions.

The paper is limited to using secondary data. Therefore, empirical investigation can be carried out to strengthen the validation of the model.

The study outcome seeks to improve the productivity of the farmers through enhancing their access to finance. This will increase their level of production and provide more employment opportunities. In addition, it will boost financial inclusion, income generation, poverty alleviation, standard of living, food security and overall economic growth and development.

The novelty of this study lies in the integration of classical Bay-Salam with Takaful and value chain and create a unique model structure which the researchers do not come across in any research that presented it in Nigeria.