and Weingast argue that the political history of England in the period before the Industrial
Revolution illustrates two important propositions: the first, that the establishment of secure
and stable property rights for private citizens is a necessary and sufficient condition for
economic growth, and the second, that the estab-lishment of such rights depended on the
creation of a repre-sentative democracy. Thus, they believe that there was an intimate
connection between the Glorious Revolution of I688 and the Industrial Revolution of 1760 …

INTRODUCTION h we look across the contemporary worid we see a clear association.
Countries with high incomes per capita tend to be those with a stable set of political
institutions, typically democracies, and we11 defined property rights. Poor countries tend to
be autocracies with periodic outbursts of violence, and with pervasive corruption, nepotism,
and ill defined property rights. 2 This modem association leads naturally to the question-is
the achievement of stable democratic institutions a necessary condition for modem …