Handbook on Institutions and Complexity

Edited by Eric Alston, Scholar in Residence, Finance Division, University of Colorado Boulder, Lee J. Alston, Professor of Economics and Affiliate Professor of Law, Emeritus, Indiana University, and Research Associate, NBER, USA and Bernardo Mueller, Department of Economics, University of Brasília, Brazil

• ContentsIntroduction: towards a complex theory of institutional analysis x Eric Alston, Lee J. Alston, and Bernardo Mueller 1 On the complexity of the link between institutions and complexity: an overview 1 Eric Alston, Lee J. Alston and Bernardo Mueller 2 Five uncanny rules, results, restrictions, and regularities from complex systems 23 Bernardo Mueller PART I COMPLEXITY THEORY HELPS US UNDERSTAND SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ORDERS 3 Douglass North, new institutional economics, and complexity theory 50 John B. Davis with Mauro Boianovsky 4 Rethinking Systems of Survival: Jane Jacobs amplifed via complexity theory 66 Meg Tuszynski and Richard E. Wagner 5 Institutional dynamics in an economy seen as a complex adaptive system 83 Miguel Vazquez, Gustavo Andreão, and José Maria F.J. da Silveira 6 Exiting ergodicity 105 Abigail Devereaux 7 The coevolution of everything, everywhere, all at once: institutions, culture, and the great enrichment 126 Bernardo Mueller PART II HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND COMPLEXITY 8 Beliefs, institutions and norms in a complex system 159 Lee J. Alston 9 Social models and institutional policy: four walks in the dark 174 Thráinn Eggertsson 10 Religion, political legitimacy, and complexity 190 Jared Rubin 11 Political and economic institutional emergence 205 Eric Alston PART III ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONAL UNITS AND COMPLEXITY 12 The complex architecture of property rights 241 Henry E. Smith 13 The complex world of micro-institutions: the illustrative case of hybrids 263 Claude Menard 14 Complex systems interplay: cities and institutions 285 Bernardo Alves Furtado PART IV HOW ORGANIZATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS LIMITEDLY CONFRONT COMPLEXITY 15 Imprisoning complexity in modules 303 Richard N. Langlois 16 Economic complexity, institutions, and industrial policy 325 Renan Sousa and Bernardo Mueller 17 The challenge of governing complex forest ecosystems: can a polycentric approach help? 349 Komal Preet Kaur, Varnitha Kurli, and Krister Andersson Index 374

‘This is a superb collection. No one reading this book can be left in any doubt that to recognise “institutions matter” is also to understand that what we mean by institutions is a complex entanglement of actors, norms and practices that cannot be reduced to any one dimension.’