While the library at Alexandria succumbed to fire, it is difficult to see the clouds suffering the same fate. Ending quarterly reporting will not bring an end of quarterly capitalism. The flood of information seems set to continue to rise, our cognitive in-box overflowing, our brains rewiring. That begs the question of whether there is another public policy path better able to tackle fat tails and short minds. There may be. It is both an old path and a new path. Along it lie institutions – “humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interactions” (North (1991)). So defined, institutions have long been recognised as key ingredients of stability and growth. In Adam Smith’s “other” book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, institutions were seen as a necessary foundation for progress (Smith (1759)). They embedded past knowledge – “institutional memory” – thus providing a platform for future development. They also created the security of environment necessary to generate that progress – for example, through the rule of law and property and civil rights. In the late 19th century, economists such as Thorsten Veblen went one step further. They saw institutions as the basic building blocks of economic development (Veblen (1899)). As societies and economies became more complex, institutions were needed to solve increasingly complex collective action problems. They helped co-ordinate the actions of individuals to create public goods such as language, money, the rule of law, even central banks. After a lull of over half a century, institutional economics has re-emerged with a vengeance.

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