Among economists the recognition of the importance of social and eco 1 nomic institutions has grown during the last ten years. Even be fore the more recent period, however, this trend of thought was 2 clearly noticeable. The origin and formation of institutions was one of the issues which, according to C. MENGER, should playa central 3 role in economics. Nevertheless, this tradition is not reflected in mainstream eco nomics. L. HURWICZ characterizes this failure by observing that "tra ditionally, economic analysis treats the economic system as one of the givens" (1973, p. 1). In this case...