Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 August 2023
Institutions are the system of legal rules and social norms that enhance individual economic property rights. Individuals take them as exogenous, but they are endogenous to the entire system. Institutions are complicated distributions of economic property rights and are therefore the result of attempts to maximize wealth net of the transaction costs involved. This chapter defines institutions, relates them to property rights, reviews the literature, and provides numerous examples of institutions and their evolution.
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