Toward a genuine institutional economics

Abstract This essay was delivered upon the occasion of receiving the James M. Buchanan Distinguished Fellow Award from the Public Choice Society in March 2025. The essay discusses James M. Buchanan's call for a genuine institutional economics and focuses on the research over the past 25 years by my colleagues and myself at the Mercatus Center attempting to develop that research program by focusing on endogenous rule formation in various settings. This work not only explored the function and oper