Dr Andrew Smith PhD

Research Overview

"What makes societies free, prosperous, and just? Much of my research revolves around that macro-level question, although I also do meso-level research on firms (as a good business historian should) and on the individual level micro-foundations of everything that is going on. I have drawn on the ideas of what I regard as great theorists from across the social sciences. In my publications, you will see that I applied, adapted, and extended the theories produced by scholars ranges from Elinor Ostrom to Oliver Williamson to Michel Foucault to Gordon Tullock. In the past, my research focused on constitutional political economy questions and the making of what Oliver Williamson called Level Two institutions, such as the written constitutions that set the rules of the political game. I'm increasing interested in informal norms and institutions, as I now recognise their importance of causal drivers to a degree I previously ignored. As a result, I'm now doing research on how culture influences the incidence of rent-seeking entrepreneurship, the wicked problem of modern slavery in a world of heterogenous national political institutions and global supply chains, and the legacies of Black slavery. "