This article is a revised version of the lecture Edmund S. Phelps delivered in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10, 2006, when he received the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The modern economy, where fully adopted, has been transformative for nations ? but...

While most continental European economies have exhibit deceiving outcomes for two decades, it seems necessary ? and it reveals fruitful ? to elaborate an « institutional hypothesis » to understand this failure. Our central reasoning is the following : it is in the absence or the muffling of...