Why is institutional inequality such a persistent feature across both time and culture? This presentation offers a rational choice model that explains how systems of inequality naturally evolve among large groups. Applying the concept of network effects to rights formation, the model explains how otherwise trivial imbalances in power between agents spark patterns of inequality that then get magnified by network effects and lock in at scale. The model helps explain the historical emergence and stability of political-legal systems of profound inequality such as feudalism, aristocracy, and patriarchy. These rights systems shape the legal, political, and economic organization of entire periods of history, including our current one.

About the speaker: Prof. Bryan Druzin, Associate Professor, CUHK LAW