Institutions, transaction costs and productivity in the long run

Статья. Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Economic History with number 9309004.The argument of this essay is that the immense productivity increases resulting from technological developments of the past century and a half could only be realized by fundamental changes in the institutional and organizational structure-a supply side argument; and that the consequent tensions induced by the resulting societal transformation have resulted (and are continuing to result) in politically-induced fundamental changes in the institutional structure to mitigate these tensions-a demand side argument. Both the supply side and demand side institutional changes have been and continue to be fundamental influences on productivity change.