ABSTRACT
The positive role of institutions in development has been widely assessed and confirmed; fundamentally, institutions cause economic growth and development (North 1990; Hall and Jones 1999; Acemoglu et al. 2001; Rodrik et al. 2004). The obvious next question for some scholars has naturally been to know how countries acquire good institutions. Rodrik (2000) explained that countries face two strategies to optimize their institutions: copying well-functioning institutions from advanced countries (with a risk of failure, since the effectiveness of institutions is highly specific to local conditions), or taking advantage of local knowledge and engaging in an experimentation process of institutional designs.
