Institutionalized Education and Development 'The New Institutionalism' - a New Paradigm of Development within the Context of European Integration

• Author: Laura Maria Mistreanu (Carstea)
• Position: Al. I. Cuza University of Iasi, Faculty of Economics And Business
• Pages: 666-671

Institutionalized Education and Development

„The New Institutionalism” – a New Paradigm of Development within the

Context of European Integration

Phd. Mistreanu (married Carstea) Laura Maria

“Al. I. Cuza” University of Iaşi, Faculty of Economics And Business

Administration,laura22vs@yahoo.com

Abstract. We shall open this paper with reference to th e book “Understanding the Process of Economic

Change” by D.C. North being considered of reference in the issues which are subject to research („there are

some fund amental characteristics of success ful economic development which are common for all the

economies but at the same time th ere is no universal pattern to reach these r esults”-North). How can poorness

be explained in most of the states of the world where the sources for economic growth are known? The human

failure and the institutional framework have a special contribution in finding solutions in order to obtain

economic growth and implicitly the growth of economic development. The article makes references to the

institutional framework and its importance for the economic development of a country, to the educational

organizations and to their contribution to the economic develop ment. Viewed from a reactive factor of

development, the education has become proactive. This is because the perspective of education has been

accentuating more and more, called in to prepare the people for types of societies which have not existed yet.

The gap within the field of education has a fundamental character in maintaining and emphasizing the gaps

between the social – economic development of different countries.

Keywords: education, institutionalism, economic development.

1 Introduction

Even from the time of Adam Smith, education was thought to be an element contributing to the economic

and social equality. Even before Adam Smith, there had been references in the specialty literature

referring to the role of the education in this direction. William Petty was among the first persons to

promote the fair distribution of education. Some Mercantilists supported main stream education with the

aim to improve mainly the productivity from the agricultural field and the progress of the society in

general. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the school reformers from the USA favored the spread of

education among the poor. One of them saw school as an instrument to reach justice and equality of all

opportunities and to remove poverty. A long time ago, Simon Kuznets foresaw the fact that the

distribution of income in the capitalized countries would be equitable the more educated the working

force was. Theodore Schultz, in a study entitled “The Economic Value of Education” emphasized: “these

changes in the human capital represent the basic factor in reducing inequality from the distribution of the

income”. The education has proved to be vital in the economic progress and in the improvement of

economic equality. A group of specialists have reached the conclusion that the most important factor of

income inequality is the human capital.

2 “The New Institutionalism” – a new paradigm of the development

An economy may be characterized by means of innumerable demographic, economic, institutional and

technological statistics but what is really needed for us to know is the interaction among them. Why do

we make references to these things in relation to education? It is because the basis of this interaction is

represented by the stock of knowledge which the society possesses, firstly it is the institutional framework

which establishes the set of play rules and the demography which describes the quantity and quality of the

human beings. This stock of knowledge determines the superior potential related to the wellbeing of the

society and the institutional framework determines the simulation structure of society. The center of the

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