Ha-Joon Chang effectively criticizes the mainstream approach to the institutions of development, on theoretical, empirical and historical grounds. He also creates an opening for a different kind of discussion about institutions and development, between heterodox institutional and Marxian economics. But he overlooks the opportunity to analyze the relationship between class and the institutions of development.

Should scholars, like columnists, exaggerate and aggregate opposing views into men of straw? I analyse an example of scholarly criticism that characterizes the treatment of development in institutional economics as a simplistic and extremist paradigm. I argue that scholarly standards demand a complete and honest portrayal of contrary opinions and that straw men should be banished from scholarly discourse.

Ha-Joon Chang (2011), in his article ‘Institutions and Economic Development: Theory, Policy and History’, argues that economists place too much faith in ‘liberalized’ institutions. Institutions matter for growth, he contends, but not the way institutional economists think they do. In this article, we offer a defense of the hypothesis that ‘institutions matter’ for economic growth and present several objections to Chang's arguments.

This article provides comments on the article titled ‘Institutions and Economic Development: Theory, Policy and History’ by Ha-Joon Chang.

This article is a reply to the comments made on my target article, ‘Institutions and Economic Development: Theory, Policy and History’, at the beginning of this issue.