Spotting Institutional Voids in Emerging Markets

With the demise of communism, many countries in the world are striving to build their economic activity around markets and to participate in free trade arrangements, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), European Union (EU), and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Addresses several issues critical to understanding the unique nature of emerging markets relative to their more mature counterparts. What is the fundamental challenge in building well-functioning markets? On which sets of institutions do advanced markets rely to resolve these challenges? What makes building these institutions complex? What happens when some of these institutions are either absent or underdeveloped in an economy? How does one spot these institutional voids?