Logical models of legal reasoning often assume that norms give a complete description of their applicability conditions, an assumption which is too strong, due to the complexities and dynamics of the world. Norms cannot take into account all the possible conditions where they should or should not be applied, first of all because the legislator cannot consider all the possible contexts which are...

Many low- and middle income countries heavily rely on out-of-pocket health care expenditure. The challenge for these countries is how to modify their health financing system in order to achieve universal coverage. This paper proposes an analytical framework for undertaking a systematic review of a health financing system and its performance on the basis of which to identify adequate changes to ...

This paper surveys alternative approaches to the emergence and evolution of institutions. The challenge is to develop frameworks capable of capturing both stability and change. We follow a “descaling” approach to show how founding assumptions about economics—namely, alternative assumptions about individual rationality and the role of social efficiency— influence our understanding of the drivers...

gratulated on fulfilling a want in a field so long left barren. While the book is necessarily written from an American viewpoint, essential problems of administration vary but little from country to country. Dr. Bryan's opinions, based on long experience, are worth while, practical and ably presented, and his book should be of the greatest benefit to all psychiatrists engaged in institutional p...

The participation of local communities and other stakeholders in managing forestry and conservation projects can help to improve forest productivity, alleviate poverty, enhance environmental sustainability, and make rules governing forest access more enforceable. Introducing participatory management depends on government commitment; and it requires time and resources to develop consensus among ...

1. Introduction It is widely recognized that institutions matter. Indeed, recent econometric analyses have provided ample empirical support to the claims that various proxies of institutions' effectiveness such as measures of risk of property expropriation influence economic outcomes. The challenge of institutional analysis, therefore, is to advance beyond exploring the implications of institut...

We believe in the power of modularity, and thus we have organized the readings for the seminar in a modular fashion. This PDF file contains three short papers. They are bookmarked for your convenience, and you can read them in any sequence you like. The papers are: “The Value and Consequences of Modularity in Design.” (13 pp.) This paper summarizes the main arguments of our book Design Rules, V...

This research investigates how institutional carriers – from rules and power systems to cognitive schemas and information technology – influence the reproduction of centralized decision-making governance structures in virtual communities. Studying a group of four virtual communities, the findings show that community members invoke a variety of institutional carriers in order to try to legitimat...

There is increasing consensus that institutional innovations are just as important for development as technological innovations. Polycentric systems are social systems of many autonomous decision centers operating under an overarching set of rules. The rural poor hold positions in polycentric systems, which are marginalized as a result of poverty, exclusion and degraded environments. Horizontal...