Recently I stumbled upon this article from the renowned development economist Dani Rodrik, which eloquently made the case that markets don’t just magically work all by themselves:
[There is] a serious misunderstanding of how markets really function. Raised on textbooks that obscure the role of institutions, economists often imagine that markets arise on their own, with no help from purposeful, collective action. Adam Smith may have been right that “the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange” is innate to humans, but a panoply of non-market institutions is needed to realize this propensity.
Consider all that is required. Modern markets need an infrastructure of transport, logistics, and communication, much of it the result of public investments. They need systems of contract enforcement and property-rights protection. They need regulations to ensure that consumers make informed decisions, externalities are internalized, and market power is not abused. They need central banks and fiscal institutions to avert financial panics and moderate business cycles. They need social protections and safety nets to legitimize distributional outcomes.
I think Rodrik is spot on here. (I am a longstanding Rodrik fan and a former student of his, though I’m skeptical on some of his other research conclusions.) In our common conversations about how markets should work we often establish a false dichotomy between two extremes: lawless unfettered capitalism vs central planning. As Rodrik reminds us (and Adam Smith more than 200 years ago, for that matter), markets can not function properly without the role of government in laying the groundwork.
I would go a step further and say that markets need more than just government institutions to work properly. They also need moral institutions: honesty, fairness, compassion, commitment to family, generosity, etc. These are the bedrock principles of the Baha’i Faith and every religion, and each faith exists for the purpose of raising the level of each “institution” among human society. Unfortunately the economics research on this subject is pretty sparse. I think there are several reasons for this, one of which is that previous research trying to link cultural norms to economic outcomes has been proven wrong or even racist (like Weber’s “Protestant ethic” or the “Hindu” rate of economic growth). Another major reason is that these things are just difficult to quantify.
Nonetheless, I would like to see economists like Rodrik, who are brilliant in recognizing the importance of public and social institutions, to place a similar emphasis on moral institutions. Maybe in that case the role of religion in economic outcomes might gain more appreciation, given religion’s curiously powerful role in raising the level of these institutions.
fruittreeblog.com 
Ethics and morality seem essential in any social structure. Contributions of moral “institutions” (if you mean religions) however can be positive, negative or even immoral like economic chaos in most Islamic countries. Please enlighten me if I have misunderstood your point. I do not deny that religion is the greatest source of moral inspiration.
Iraj
Yup, that is a great point that the contribution of religion can be positive, negative, or whatever. It can certainly be argued that in today’s era religion has been in fact negative, and I might not disagree. I would hope that the influence of the Bahai Faith on moral values is positive and very large. The point of the post mostly was to argue that moral qualities, whose promotion can be seen as the goal of the Bahai Faith and other religions, should be seen as “institutions” needed for markets to work their best.
Please remind me why morality is contingent upon religion.
Not contingent on religion, but in my view it takes more than a secular approach to “turn the ship around” in terms of really resurrecting human values.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_ethics
The whole existence of secular ethics is based on the premise of moral / ethical institutions that aren’t religious.
Secular ethics is a branch of moral philosophy in which ethics is based solely on human faculties such as logic, reason or moral intuition, and not derived from purported supernatural revelation or guidance (which is the source of religious ethics). Secular ethics comprises any ethical system that does not draw on the supernatural, such as humanism, secularism and freethinking.
The majority of secular moral systems accept either the normativity of social contracts, some form of attribution of intrinsic moral value, intuition-based deontology, or cultural moral relativism. A smaller minority believe scientific reasoning can reveal moral truth. This is known as science of morality. Approaches like utilitarianism, subjective moral relativism, and ethical egoism are less common, but still maintain a significant following among secular ethicists. Little attention is paid to the positions of moral skepticism and moral nihilism; however, many religious and some secular ethicists believe that secular morality cannot exist without a god or gods to provide ontological grounding, or is at least impossible to apprehend apart from authoritative revelation.
Secular ethics frameworks do not necessarily contradict religious ethics. For example, the Golden Rule or a commitment to non-violence, could be supported by those within religious and secular ethical frameworks. Secular ethics systems can also vary within the societal and cultural norms of a specific time period.