Institutional Complexity and the Public Choice Analysis of Feasible Policy Changes

The tension between the desire to reform institutions to achieve improved outcomes and the possibility of unintended consequences because of the complexity of institutional interactions has a long intellectual history. Often, the tension is marked by two extreme positions: either to deny the full complexity and nonlinearity of institutional reality to save the possibility of institutional design, or to deny the possibility of institutional design and fully embrace institutional and cultural evolution (even on normative grounds). The middle-ground position acknowledges institutional complexity while maintaining the possibility of institutional design and deliberate policy reforms