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What explains the great variability in economic growth and political development across countries? Institutional and organizational analysis has developed since the 1970s into a powerful toolkit, which argues that institutions and norms rather than geography, culture, or technology are the primary causes of sustainable development. Institutions are rules that recognized authorities create and enforce. Norms are rules created by long-standing patterns of behavior, shared by people in a society or organization. They combine to play a role in all organizations, including governments, firms, churches, universities, gangs, and even families. This introduction to the concepts and applications of institutional and organizational analysis uses economic history, economics, law, and political science to inform its theoretical framework. Institutional and organizational analysis becomes the basis to show why the economic and political performance of countries worldwide have not converged, and reveals the lessons to be learned from it for business, law, and public policy.

Provides a toolkit for, and systemic overview of, institutional analysis
Analyzes institutions and institution-making in many types of organizations, including families, firms, and governments
Combines economics, economic history, law, and political science, while laying out the concepts of institutional analysis in an orderly fashion that is rigorous without being mathematical



Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I. From Institutions to Economic Outcomes:
1. Institutions and property rights
2. Property rights and transaction costs
3. Organizations and contracts
Part II. From Economic Outcomes to Political Performance:
4. Special interests and citizens
5. The legislature and executive
6. Bureaucracies
7. The judicial system
Part III. The Dynamics of Economic and Political Development:
8. Developmental trajectories: institutional deepening and critical transitions
9. Case studies of critical transitions: Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, and the United States
Conclusion.