The statement ‘institutions matter’ has become commonplace. A precondition for it to be supported by empirical evidence is, however, that institutions are measurable. Some of the difficulties in measuring institutions are described and some ways of measuring them are proposed.

I use the historical institutions of the Trobriand Islands to discuss problems and non-problems with measuring institutions and estimating their causal effects on economic outcomes.

In his article on measuring institutions, Stephan Voigt (2012) proposes a pragmatic approach to develop more concrete, objective institutional variables than the broad abstractions used in most cross-country growth regressions. Voigt's approach has important strengths, but cross-country growth regressions, even with precisely measured institutions, are less likely to yield new insights than other methodologies.

This is a short reply to the comments by James Robinson and Mary Shirley on my paper ‘How (not) to measure institutions’.

There are few concepts that are more central to natural resource management than those of property and property rights. Given their importance, it might be expected that there would be some consensus in the economic literature about what property and property rights are. However, no such consensus seems to exist. In fact, different authors use the same terms to denote quite disparate concepts and ideas, impeding rather than advancing progress in understanding natural resource management. As but one example, there is hardly a concept that has been as fundamentally misunderstood as that of the commons. That misunderstanding notwithstanding, there is another, less familiar, more common and even more fundamental one: the persistent confusion of possession with property. This article argues that the distinction between possession and property is of particular importance for comprehending the meaning of institutional shifts from one resource management regime to another. It therefore reviews concepts central to natural resource management, by distinguishing between state, private, common property and possession on the one hand and open access on the other.

This paper develops an account of the normative basis of priority setting in health care as combining the values which a given society holds for the common good of its members, with the universal provided by a principle of common humanity. We discuss national differences in health basket in Europe and argue that health care decision-making in complex social and moral frameworks is best thought of as anchored in such a principle by drawing on the philosophy of need. We show that health care needs are ethically ‘thick’ needs whose psychological and social construction can best be understood in terms of David Wiggins's notion of vital need: a person's need is vital when failure to meet it leads to their harm and suffering. The moral dimension of priority setting which operates across different societies’ health care systems is located in the demands both of and on any society to avoid harm to its members.

Why do economic agents conform with existing institutions? Drawing on economics and organizational institutionalism, this article identifies existing explanations, extends or refines some of them, suggests new ones, classifies these various explanations, and integrates them into an organized framework. One set of explanations focuses on conformity out of habit. The other refers to more conscious thought and behavior and considers coordination and increasing returns to adoption, social sanctions, informational differences, uncertainty, legitimacy, naturality, and lack of power/resources to deviate.

This paper is about the mind of the embedded individual in heterodox economics. Beginning from Margaret Archer's analysis of modes of reflexivity and following the respective contributions of Geoff Hodgson and John Davis, the paper seeks to integrate into Archer's approach a place for habitual beliefs and an analysis of the ‘relative autonomy’ of the embedded individual. Archer's identification of modes of reflexivity is endorsed but her avoidance of any dispositional place for habit in the mind is questioned. It is argued that by excluding habits in this way, Archer, unlike Davis, implausibly assumes most individuals have achieved relative autonomy in their group associations. The essay develops an approach to the mind that articulates underlying relationships between habits and internal conversation, potentially enriching Archer's explanation of modes of reflexivity while locating Davis's notion of relative autonomy within that framework. Specific economic implications are then briefly considered.