内容简介：
This work aims to redirect the study of what was previously referred to as comparative economic systems toward analysis of the history and development of institutions, and the effects of alternative institutional arrangements on economic behaviour. To this end, the book internalizes into a theoretical framework: the effects of alternative institutions on the costs of transactions and incentive structures; the effects of the costs of transactions and incentives on economic behaviour; and the evidence for refutable implications of those effects. In the process, it provides the logical premises for various institutions from which refutable implications can be deduced.