Which institutions determine growth?

The international development community has come to focus more and more on institutions, as were it the panacea to the development question. The quality of institutions is said to be vital to economic growth, and an array of studies has proven this theoretically and empirically. However, there are two knotty issues. The first is about the definition and measures of institutions. The most commonly adopted definition of 'institutions' is given by North (1981) who defines them as "a set of rules, compliance procedures, and moral and ethical behavioural norms designed to constrain the behavior of individuals in the interests of maximizing the wealth or utility of principles" (North 1981, pp. 201-202). This definition is grand, as it comprises almost everything a society is built up of. But this definition is not easily translated to an empirical estimation, or to policy.