Problem Solving and Institutional Design
本文提出基于经验的问题解决制度理论，认为制度形式主要取决于对问题的识别、表征及解决方案的生成，而非单纯自利最大化选择，对理解复杂公共政策问题中的制度设计有参考价值。
The most prominent contemporary approach to institutions asserts that they result from self-interested, maximizing choice from among some array of alternative forms that biases outcomes in certain directions. But institutions such as large-scale formal organizations also are powerful instruments for solving difficult problems. From this perspective, founded in the institutionalism of the late nineteenth century and grounded in cognitive psychology and procedural rationality, choices about institutional forms are principally a function of identifying and representing problems and generating alternatives for their solution. Contemporary public policy problems are characterized by organized complexity and are largely illstructured. Consequently, the most difficult task for decision makers is to comprehend the problems they confront and, because alternatives are rarely given, to devise institutional forms that can effectively redress those problems. This article proposes and elaborates an empirically based problem-solving theory of institutions.