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PART II DETERMINANTS OF DEMAND FOR INFORMAL INSTITUTIONS For a new behavioral foundation to be a contribution to the social science rather than an invitation to ad hoc explanation, we need more empirical information about preferences and how we come to have them as well as mor e adequate models of behavior under less restrictive pr eference assumptions. —Samuel Bowles, Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions and Evolution (2004: 98) Institutions exist to r educe the uncer tainties involved in human interaction. These uncer tainties arise as a consequence of both the complexity of the pr oblems to be solved and the pr oblem-solving software. . . possessed by the individual. Ther e is nothing in the above statement that implies that the institutions ar e eff cient. —Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance (1990: 25) ...

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