Are institutions the main cause of sustained economic growth? Institutions and Small Settler Economies provides a comprehensive improvement in our understanding of institutional contributions to economic growth based on North, Wallis and Weingast's (NWW) institutional theory. In this exciting new volume, Schlueter offers a substantial range of novel insights into the socio-economic development trajectories of two deliberately selected New World economies: New Zealand and Uruguay. This study sets itself apart from other publications through its impartial analysis of the strengths and limitations of leading institutional scholarship, as well as its rigorous comparative methodology involving a substantial set of quantitative and qualitative data.