Institutional Analysis and Design

Abstract

Note to the Reader:

"This is a preliminary and incomplete draft of a manuscript that attempts to provide theoretical foundations for institutional analysis and design. We conceive of institutions to be nothing more nor less than decision-making arrangements. Institutional analysis is concerned with the effect of different decision-making arrangements upon human conduct and upon the well-being of the individuals who are involved. Institutional design is concerned with the choice of decision-making arrangements that will provide the means that are appropriate to the realization [of] specifiable objectives, consequences or ends in view. Any practical man of action who is concerned with organizing the efforts of many individuals in a joint enterprise is necessarily involved in problems of institutional analysis and design..."