ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the confront a number of fundamental puzzles in economic history/development—puzzles that go to the heart of the nature of economic change. They can be broadly classified under two general headings: how to account for the uneven and erratic pattern of both historical change and contemporary development, and how to model this process of change and development. Economic organizations are firms, trade unions, cooperatives, etc.; political organizations are political parties, legislatures, regulatory bodies; educational organizations are universities, schools, vocational training centers. It was the lack of large-scale political and economic order that created the essential environment hospitable to political/economic development. The Netherlands and England pursued different paths to political/economic success, but in each case, the experiences were conducive to the evolution of a belief structure that induced political and economic institutions that lowered transaction costs.
