The new institutional economics: Can It deliver for change and development?

Abstract

The New Institutional Economics (NIE) has developed in order to find answers to the following kinds of questions that could not be answered (at least until very recently) by traditional economics (either neoclassical or Marxian): (1) Why are institutions so different from one time and place to another? (2) Why are they the way they are? (3) How and to what extent do they explain differences in productivity? (4) Why and how do inefficient institutions get locked in? (5) Of all the institutional differences that exist, which ones really matter?.