Implications of Institutional Economics for Improving Business Environment

To transform their innovative ideas to profitable businesses, entrepreneurs need to organize many different transactions. To perform theses transaction, they need to operate in the context of institutional environment. If institutional environment facilitates transactions and lowers their costs, it is said that there is a good business environment and we expect that the benefits of transactions outweigh their costs and in this environment, innovations relevant to transactions can be realized and vice versa. In this paper, following John R. Commons, one of the pioneers of original institutional economics, we argue that to lower transaction costs, institution must be able to resolves conflicts of interest. In other word, to design cost-economizing institutions, one needs to recognize conflicts of interest and find solutions in the way that they can be resolved. In this framework, we demonstrate that some of the World Bank’s Doing Business Indicators are designed to indicate the existence and efficiency of such institutions. If it seems acceptable, then improving business environment would be a continuous process of designing institutions that their main function is resolving conflicts of interest.