Yesterday, Gonzalo Rivero showed me that Acemoglu uploads all his lecture notes to his webpage. The slides are condensed but intelligible, and sometimes you come across small useful tools. Just like this “dynamical framework” to analyze how does the influence of (political) institutions operate over the economic performance and the (in)equality:

Take North’s definition of “institution” – ‘to reduce uncertainty by establishing a stable (but not necessarily efficient) structure to human interaction’. Take also his social conflict approach – institutions emerge as a result of economic agents’ conflicting preferences. A political institution on the time t, then, defines who is legitimated to do what according to the explicit rules of the system (de jure power). In that same moment, the given distribution of resources determines the creation of dynamics surrounding de facto power, that is, who has the capacity to mobilize resources in order to achieve X goals. Those power struggles are part of the factors that produce new political institutions (t+1), but also the economic ones, such as property rights and contracting modes. Of course, is within this economic institution frame where economic performance and new distribution of resources occur.

This is, of course, a pretty simple circular once explained. But I see this sort of basic schemes as a point you always return to when you get yourself into trouble while building theoretical frameworks.