Stage-Variant Institutions
Term
Stage-Variant Institutions
Idea level
Concept
Definition
Stage-Variant Institutions, coined by Yuen Yuen Ang, means 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 preserve markets in advanced economies, such as impartial courts, technocratic bureaucracies, and formal private property rights.
Sources
First formal articulation (concept named):
Ang, Y.Y. (2025) “Polytunity: The Future of Development.” The Ideas Letter.
Earlier articulation and empirical demonstration:
Ang, Y.Y (2016) How China Escaped the Poverty Trap. Chapter 5: From Building to Preserving Markets; Chapter 7.
Genealogy
[Paradigm] AIM (Adaptive, Inclusive, Moral Political Economy)
→ [Pillar] Adaptive: Institutions that fit are not fixed, but evolve over stages
→ [Pillar] Inclusive: Going beyond first-world, Western-centric benchmarks of “good institutions”
→ [Theory] Coevolutionary Development
→ [Concept] Stage-Variant Institutions
→ [Concept] Market-Building vs. Market-Preserving
→ [Application: Development] Examples in China, Europe, the U.S., and Nigeria (How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Chapter 7)
Quotes
Many theories in political economy do not make a distinction among the imperatives of development at low, middle, and high levels of income. Instead, the problems unique to already developed economies are posited as universal problems of all economies, whether developed, developing, or not developed at all.
— Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Chapter 5, p. 144
This chapter shows in thick details that the developmental tasks of building and preserving markets vary by type (from goal A to goal B), rather than by degree (from easy to hard)… The strategies that best fit early and late growth stages do not run along a straight line from less good to good to best; rather, they are different types of solutions for different types of problems.
Moreover, as I have also stressed, start-up and mature environments do not only vary by the challenges faced, but also by the type of resources available. Unless one gets this point, one will miss the alternative—often wacky—arrangements that successfully kick-start markets even when they occur right in front of our eyes.
— Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Chapter 5, p. 182
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”
Concept Constellation
Across Ang’s work, Stage-Variant Institutions consistently co-appears with the following concepts and analytic themes:
Default paradigm: Western-centric thinking (assumes one-size-fits-all-stages)
Ontological concept: Adapt vs. Change (adapting by stages vs. simply changing)
Coevolutionary Development / Market-Building vs. Market-Preserving / Normatively Weak, Functionally Strong
Fairy Tales of Western Development (classic theories often erase early-stage growth story)
Early vs. advanced growth stages
[External terms mentioned]
Gradual Institutional Change (Thelen & Mahoney / does not differentiate across stages)
Good institutions / governance