Institutions: Facilitators or Detractors of Development?

Markets, Globalization & Development Review Volume 10 Number 1 Article 1 2025 Institutions: Facilitators or Detractors of Development? Nikhilesh Dholakia University of Rhode Island Deniz Atik University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Zeynep Ozdamar Ertekin Izmir University of Economics Delphine Godefroit-Winkel TBS Business School, Casablanca Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/mgdr Part of the Anthropology Commons, Economics Commons, Marketing Commons, Other Business Commons, Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons, and the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Dholakia, Nikhilesh; Atik, Deniz; Ozdamar Ertekin, Zeynep; and Godefroit-Winkel, Delphine (2025) "Institutions: Facilitators or Detractors of Development?," Markets, Globalization & Development Review: Vol. 10: No. 1, Article 1. DOI: 10.23860/MGDR-2025-10-01-01 Available at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/mgdr/vol10/iss1/1 This Editorial is brought to you by the University of Rhode Island. It has been accepted for inclusion in Markets, Globalization & Development Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact . For permission to reuse copyrighted content, contact the author directly. Institutions: Facilitators or Detractors of Development? This editorial is available in Markets, Globalization & Development Review: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/mgdr/ vol10/iss1/1 Dholakia et al.: Institutions and Development Institutions: Facilitators or Detractors of Development? Introduction In the first half of 2025, the disciplines that deal with globalization and development – economics, international politics, development studies, manufacturing and production studies, supply chain studies, transportation and logistics, media studies, migration and intercultural studies, branding and marketing, finance, and more – all came under severe strain, following the rapid series of presidential executive orders that emanated from the White House in Washington DC after January 20, 2025. Institutions that undergird international and global trade, commerce, communications, shipping, travel, investments, etc. also became immensely stressed. In particular, there were rapid and unpredictable announcements about tariffs – imposed or threatened – by the United States on its major trading partners. In such a milieu, it is important to bring institutions into focal discussion (Duman 2024). We open this issue therefore with a paper that reviews the type of economic thinking that falls under the label of New Institutional Economics. While the author Murali Patibandla (2025) focuses mainly on the key economists – including several Nobel laureates – who introduced institutional (and thereby organizational) thinking in economics, he also brings in some discussions of actual institutional dynamics at the macro levels in settings like the U.S. and India. Articles in This Issue The first article in this issue by Patibandla (2025) emphasizes the importance of institutions for efficient and fair functioning of capitalist nations and examines what these institutions are and how they evolve and function. The article maps out the development of the “The New Institutional Economics” (NIE), pioneered by Ronald Coase (1937), and makes contribution via several extensions. After reflecting on the literature under two interrelated themes of institutions of governance and institutional environment, Patibandla (2025) provides a meticulous discussion on how institutional change takes place, by introducing diverse examples of major external shocks (such as colonialism and wars) and internal shocks (such as revolutions, civil wars, economic crises, and technological changes) that initiate change, along with their impacts. Through these examples, the author demonstrates that the institutional environment evolves over time. Patibandla (2025) further argues that “the literature on the institutional environment of capitalism over-glorifies the effect of the Western colonial rule and fails to explain 1 Published by DigitalCommons@URI, 2025 1 Markets, Globalization & Development Review, Vol. 10 [2025], No. 1, Art. 1 the success stories of Japan, Taiwan, mainland China, and South Korea” (p.30). In his concluding remarks, he provides examples of historians such as Dalrymple (2024), who discuss how India and its ancient civilization contributed to the Western civilization and suggests that as future research, it will be intriguing for economists to study India’s potential influence on the global economy, politics, and culture. The second article in this issue by Mazaraki, Melnyk, and Losheniuk (2025) investigates youth employment as a growing global challenge, focusing on Ukraine, where pre-war migration, the impacts of COVID-19, discrimination, and the ongoing war have triggered an economic crisis and widespread youth migration, making it increasingly difficult for young people to secure jobs. In the first sections of their article, the authors provide a detailed overview of global trends in youth employment and the global labor market, discussing the implications for policy and skills development. MGDR readers will find their thorough analysis of challenges — such as the global shortage of decent work, rising income inequality, growing poverty, social injustice, and gender inequality among young people — particularly insightful. In the later sections, the authors explore strategies for economic recovery and transformation aimed at promoting youth employment and entrepreneurship through the opportunities presented by the global transition to green, blue, digital, and creative economies to create decent work for young people. They conclude by emphasizing that “[y]oung people should be viewed as assets—as catalysts for development—not as passive beneficiaries for whom jobs need to be found” (p. 21), as they “have the potential to positively shape the landscape of the global economy, as well as social, cultural, technological, and political development” (p. 21). Dialogue in This Issue In the dialogue piece of this issue, Bhattacharyya and Sarma (2025) review the literature on the dimensionalities and conceptual connections of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) – “a tool that helps a firm estimate the future customer value” (p.1). The authors examine key factors influencing the value a customer generates for a business, including customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, word-of-mouth (WOM), and relationship-related drivers such as enhanced customer service and engagement. Their literature review identifies important variables for an empirical study, which is not included in this commentary but is currently under review in MGDR. The authors conclude by emphasizing that CLV is closely tied to how firms can boost profitability by building and nurturing strong customer relationships. Once such relationships are established, “multiple benefits accrue to the brand and (...truncated)