ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the implications of institutional economics for the theory and practice of evaluation. It argues that unimproved institutions constitute obstacles to reaching larger goals like reducing poverty and hunger, protecting the environment, or stimulating economic growth and development. If institutional factors are to be systematically evaluated, then the designers of development interventions need to bear in mind the requirements of evaluation designs. Evaluation has developed a whole panoply of methods drawn from all the relevant disciplines, and evaluators have been using them separately and in concert since the early seventies. Evaluation can help here by supplying more appropriate designs. The chapter is concerned with the difficulty of applying intellectual frameworks to the complex array of problems faced in operational work. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.
