While the evolution of spontaneous institutions is quite well understood in economic thinking, the development of consciously designed institutions has been examined much less. In new institutional economics, public choice, and law and economics the interaction between changing preferences and spontaneously evolving institutions on the one hand and the evolution of designed institutions (as, e.g., legal systems) on the other hand has largely been ignored.

A number of top class international contributors have been assembled to study this phenomenon including Viktor Vanberg, Bruno Frey, Elinor Ostrom and Francesco Parisi.