Stage-Variant Institutions

Term

Stage-Variant Institutions

Idea level

Concept

Definition

Stage-Variant Institutions is a concept coined by Yuen Yuen Ang to capture the idea that the institutional forms and strategies that work at one stage of development may not work at another. Within Ang’s theory of Coevolutionary Development, institutions that build markets in early, start-up economies—often by repurposing normatively weak or unorthodox arrangements—differ qualitatively from the modern institutions that later preserve markets in advanced economies, such as impartial courts, technocratic bureaucracies, and formal private property rights.

Sources

First articulation (conceptual naming):

• Ang, Yuen Yuen. “Polytunity: The Future of Development.” The Ideas Letter (2025).

Earlier articulation (concept present, not yet named):

• Ang, Yuen Yuen. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), Chapters 1, 5, 6 and 7.

• Ang, Yuen Yuen. “Do Weberian Bureaucracies Lead to Markets or Vice Versa? A Coevolutionary Approach to Development.” In States in the Developing World (2017).

Theoretical synthesis:

• Ang, Yuen Yuen. “Adaptive Political Economy: Toward a New Paradigm.” World Politics (2024).

Genealogy

[Paradigm] AIM (Adaptive, Inclusive, Moral Political Economy)

→ [Pillar] Adaptive Political Economy (APE)

→ [Theory] Coevolutionary Development

→ [Concept] Stage-Variant Institutions

→ [Concept] Market-Building vs. Market-Preserving

→ [Application: Development] Applications to China, Europe, the U.S., and Nigeria (How China Escaped the Poverty Trap)

[Insert illustrative table from book]

Quote

“In other words, [Coevolutionary Development] is a stage-variant theory of institutions. What works for advanced economies may not work for start-up economies, and vice versa. We know plenty about the ‘good institutions’ that support advanced economies (impartial courts, technocratic bureaucracies, formal private property rights), but the canons have been largely blind to the institutions and methods that work for the start-ups.”

+ Ang, “Polytunity: The Future of Development”

Concept Constellation

Across Ang’s work, Stage-Variant Institutions consistently co-appears with the following concepts and analytic themes:

• Coevolutionary Development

• Market-Building vs. Market-Preserving

• Using what you have

• Endogeneity

• Root cause

• Form and function of institutions that matters differ across context / root causes vary

• In contrast to: Good institutions as the primary or root cause of development