Centre de recherche en économie de Grenoble

Abstact :  there is now an almost general agreement among economists that “institutions matter”. However, a puzzle remains: how so? What institutions are we talking about? And how do we assess their impact? The existing literature has essentially focused on the role of macro-institutions (e.g., the impact of democratic institutions on growth) or, to a lesser degree, on how institutions affect the behavior of agents (e.g., the impact of property rights on incentive to innovate). This leaves open a key issue: what are the transmission devices and mechanisms that support the interactions between the general rules of the game and their actual implementation in the organization of transactions? Building on recent contributions, this presentation introduces an integrative framework that shows the key role of intermediate meso-institutions in bridging this gap. The result is an extended conceptualization of institutions, substantiated by numerous empirical studies in sectors as diverse as network infrastructures, the agrifood industry, environmental policies etc.