The Domain of New Institutional Economics -- Institutions and the Performance of Economies Over Time -- The Institutional Structure of Production -- Transaction Cost Economics -- Political Institutions and the State -- Electoral Institutions and Political Competition -- Presidential versus Parliamentary Government -- Legislative Process and the Mirroring Principle -- The Performance and Stability of Federalism: An Institutional Perspective -- Legal Institutions of a Market Economy -- The Many Legal Institutions that Support Contractual Commitments -- Legal Systems as Frameworks for Market Exchanges -- Market Institutions and Judicial Rulemaking -- Legal Institutions and Financial Development -- Modes of Governance -- A New Institutional Approach to Organization -- Vertical Integration -- Solutions to Principal-Agent Problems in Firms -- The Institutions of Corporate Governance -- Firms and the Creation of New Markets -- Contractual Arrangements -- The Make-or-Buy Decision: Lessons from Empirical Studies -- Agricultural Contracts -- The Enforcement of Contracts and Private Ordering -- Regulation -- The Institutions of Regulation: An Application to Public Utilities -- State Regulation of Open-Access, Common-Pool Resources -- Property Rights and the State -- Licit and Illicit Responses to Regulation -- Institutional Change -- Institutions and Development -- Institutional and Non-Institutional Explanations of Economic Differences -- Institutions and Firms in Transition Economies -- Social Capital, Social Norms and the New Institutional Economics -- Commitment, Coercion, and Markets: The Nature and Dynamics of Institutions Supporting Exchange -- Perspectives -- Economic Sociology and New Institutional Economics -- Doing Institutional Analysis Digging Deeper Than Markets and Hierarchies.New Institutional Economics (NIE) has skyrocketed in scope and influence over the last three decades. This first Handbook of NIE provides a unique and timely overview of recent developments and broad orientations. Contributions analyse the domain and perspectives of NIE; sections on legal institutions, political institutions, transaction cost economics, governance, contracting, institutional change, and more capture NIE's interdisciplinary nature. This Handbook will be of interest to economists, political scientists, legal scholars, management specialists, sociologists, and others wishing to learn more about this important subject and gain insight into progress made by institutionalists from other disciplines. This compendium of analyses by some of the foremost NIE specialists, including Ronald Coase, Douglass North, Elinor Ostrom, and Oliver Williamson, gives students and new researchers an introduction to the topic and offers established scholars a reference book for their research.