El reto economico de abrir la caja negra de la toma de decisiones politicas

Institutions, particularly informal ones, are heavily value-loaded and evolve slowly over time. Economic policies adopted through majority voting procedures at different tiers of government, which is a central characteristic of democratic regimes, are deeply influenced by the singular institutions of each country. Scholars wanting to understand the logic of these policies must take this situational, contextualization aspect on board (and even more so if they intend to make recommendations and influence policy-makers). As stressed along this book and by Ostrom in the final chapter, we must get rid of the technocratic views about the ‘one fits all' approach to economic policies. We must all become fully aware, as the contributors to this book are, that alternative solutions always exist, and that choices must be based on comparatively assessing these alternatives, which needs careful investigation, particularly since public policies almost often involve important and unexpected distributional consequences. We must be grateful to the editors of this book for having initiated a project that contributes so nicely to this goal.