In his new book Dani Rodrik argues that the primary question facing both scholars and policy makers in the area of economic development should be “how should the institutions of economic globalization be designed to provide maximal support for national development goals?” In the course of answering this question in a challenging and highly engaging way, he continually pushes the idea that “when it comes to industrial policy, specifying the process is more important than specifying the outcome.” Quite appropriately he acknowledges that despite all of our efforts there is still a great deal that we do not know about the relationship between political and economic institutions on the one hand and economic growth on the other. And thus Rodrik recommends that we employ processes of experimentation as a way of developing a better understanding of which institutions might best facilitate growth in different contexts. In this regard he suggests that democracy might serve as a metainstitution for structuring this type of experimentation.
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