Understanding the Process of Economic Change

In This Landmark Work, a Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Develops a New Way of Understanding the Process by Which Economies Change. Douglass North Inspired a Revolution in Economic History a Generation Ago by Demonstrating That Economic Performance is Determined Largely by the Kind and Quality of Institutions That Support Markets. As He Showed in Two Now Classic Books That Inspired the New Institutional Economics (Today a Subfield of Economics), Property Rights and Transaction Costs Are Fundamental Determinants. Here, North Explains How Different Societies Arrive at the Institutional Infrastructure That Greatly Determines Their Economic Trajectories. North Argues That Economic Change Depends Largely on 'Adaptive Efficiency', a Society's Effectiveness in Creating Institutions That Are Productive, Stable, Fair, and Broadly Accepted - And, Importantly, Flexible Enough to Be Changed or Replaced in Response to Political and Economic Feedback. While Adhering to His Earlier Definition of Instit