Market economies cannot succeed without an underpinning of property right protection and contract enforcement. The formal institutions of state law that provide such economic governance exist only in modern advanced economies. Elsewhere, and through much of history, other private arrangements evolved instead: long-term relationships, arbitration, social networks to disseminate information and norms to impose sanctions, and for-profit enforcement services. Even in countries with a good legal system, many of these institutions continue under the shadow of the law. Numerous case studies and empirical investigations in economic history, law, anthropology, sociology, and political science have demonstrated the variety of such institutions, their importance, and their merits and drawbacks. This presentation, based on a book of the same title, summarizes the case study evidence and some theoretical models of the operation of some such alternative institutions of governance, and their interactions with each other and with the government’s law. For example, one model explains the limit on the size of social networks, and problems in the transition to more formal legal systems as economies grow beyond this limit. This research can help less-developed countries and transition economies devise better processes for the introduction or reform of their official legal systems. It can also help Western investors in countries with such alternative institutions avoid some pitfalls.  (Follow the link for the first chapter of Professor A. Dixit's new book).