An Evolutionary Approach to Institutional Transitions

There is a recent, expanding consensus that institutions are a key independent explanation for many of the central questions in economics. This rising intellectual trend in economics has been marked by a belief that the growth and distribution of income are intimately related to the details of the rules governing the interactions of agents in markets, states, communities, families, and firms. The recent growth in the literature on institutions has left its mark on many areas of economics. From development to economic history, the new institutional economics has inflected much of the extant economics research agenda.