Understanding Douglss North in Game-Theoretic Language

This is a contribution to the Journal Symposium on Douglass North's book on Understanding the Process of Economic Change by Structural Change and Economic Dynamics. It tries to understand his dynamic theory as that of the belief-institution co-evolution process and applies contributions of recent theories of game and knowledge by Aumann and others to this understanding. It specifically identifies three different meanings of the word beliefs used by North to distinguish the roles of culture and political and economic entrepreneurs in institutional and economic change. It also suggests ways to apply the game theory to respond to his call for inter-disciplinary studies of institutional and economic change