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The origins of local economic capability. From the fieldField notesProgram
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Research

Where economic capability comes from

We research the origins of economic capability, by focusing on the role of private initiative: what entrepreneurs and firms do to make a place able to produce work, firms and skills over generations.

What our research is about

01Economic capability

What a place is able to produce, and why some towns and regions keep that ability for generations while others lose it.

02Private initiative

Our focus. Entrepreneurs and firms that, beyond their own business, build schools, foundations, consortia and agreements around them.

03Corporate governance

The practices and policies with which firms contribute to the institutions of their place, what we call corporate statecraft, and what makes it good: clear decisions, open to the community and to revision.

Where we work

Industrial regions in democracies with market economies: the United States, Europe and Japan. We ask the same questions in each place, so the places can be compared.

United StatesActive · 04 regions
EuropeActive · 08 regions
JapanActive · 01 region
Each dot is a region we work in. The three maps share one scale; the small map shows where they sit.

We go to the place

Most of our evidence is not online. We collect it where it was produced.

  1. 01ArchivesWe read letters, minutes and contracts in local and university archives.
  2. 02VisitsWe visit plants, town halls and districts, and talk with the people who run them.
  3. 03DocumentsWe collect the rules that organize the place: by-laws, agreements, deeds.
  4. 04Field notes and papersWe publish a short field note after each visit, and a paper when the cases add up. Read the field notes
The Warren mill, Stafford Springs, ConnecticutTAV 14.01The Warren mill, Stafford Springs, Connecticut.
Our roots and our ambition

Law and economics, in both directions

Our work belongs to law and economics, the field that uses economics to study legal rules. Guido Calabresi, one of its founders, argued that the exchange should run both ways: economics can test whether a rule works, and law can show economists which rules their models take for granted.

Our ambition is a research center where law works with economics, history and political science to explain where economic capability comes from, and to keep the rules that shape it open to public discussion.

A dedicated website · coming soon

Corporate statecraft

How firms help build the institutions of the places where they work, and the practices that make this good. A separate website will collect the cases from our fieldwork and what firms can learn from them.

Visit the website ↗Tell me when it opens
[website address]corporate
statecraftCases · Practices · Firms