Conceptual Apparatus for Institutional Analysis

Abstract

"The attached paper is the first part of a conceptual apparatus suggesting a way to look at institutional configurations. I am presently working on the second part that shows how the concepts developed in this first part can be used to derive incentives consistent with a variety of institutional arrangements. The framework is general and can be adapted, I will argue, to a model showing the influence of institutional structure on selection of production methods including regular and consumer production.

"Rick Wilson and I (and 4 others in our E306) are in the middle of an empirical effort to study the relationship between institutional structure and production methods, as appears in housing complexes in the Bloomington area. We have a vaguely-developed institutional model of regular and consumer production that underlies this research; both the empirical research and model development are occurring simultaneously. This primitive effort is built on concepts appearing in the attached paper."