Abstract
The impact of institutional arrangements, the “rules of the game”, in terms of Douglass North’s definition, on macroeconomic dynamics has been largely detected in the economic-historical records. However, clarification of the nature of institutional currents and their relationship with the paths of economic growth is a challenge for contemporary economic theory. The paper will present a retrospective of the conceptualization of institutional change as a process that mimics the evolutionary systems, relying on relevant theoretical concepts and selective empirical material that is contained herein. In this sense, the paper gives insight into the important contributions reflecting on the relationship between instiutions and economic growth, the evolutionary theory of socio-economic changes and their possible implications for the current reform process. Total of argumentation offered in the paper indicates stability and inertia of institutional structures, whose dynamics is prone to path dependency. Insisting on universal reform solutions, neutral with respect to local circumstances in the process of stimulating economic growth, turns out to be ineffective.