8. An Assessment Over Previous Chapters and Concluding Remarks

This chapter includes two different parts. First, it examines each chapter in brief. Secondly, a general discussion is given on why the institutional structure of the Ottoman Empire caused failures through presented arguments in previous chapters. The findings and arguments of this study have provided a contribution to the early modern Ottoman Empire in different ways. First, institutional change should be considered as a cause of long-run divergence in comparison with European societies. Secondly, the argument of the recent literature over coercive power of the central authority in contractual relations is inadequate in explaining the failure in contractual relations. If this argument is valid, then the prices of contracts would be in an increasing trend in the long term. The failure, in this sense, has emerged from the role of judicial/religious-based agents and their efforts to protect their interests within the institutional environment. Consequently, the divergence should be examined through economic institutions as well as non-economic institutions, particularly during the early modern period.