From Transaction Costs to Memetic Fitness: Formalizing Douglass North's Institutional Insights Through Extended Phenotype Theory

FORMAL EXTENSION OF NORTH'S INSTITUTIONAL THEORY The article positions Extended Phenotype Theory (EPT) as a rigorous formalization of Douglass North's institutional framework, providing causal mechanisms and quantitative metrics that North identified as necessary but did not develop. It highlights three gaps: lack of formal explanation for why competitive pressures fail to eliminate inefficient institutions, absence of quantitative metrics for institutional resistance to change, and treatment of ideology as exogenous. KEY CONTRIBUTIONS: Provides formal causal mechanisms North identified as missing. Develops quantitative Constitutional Lock-in Index (CLI) measuring institutional resistance. Endogenizes ideology through memetic fitness functions. Validates across 193 jurisdictions with 87.4% accuracy. THEORETICAL ARCHITECTURE: Transaction costs become memetic replication machinery. Institutional path dependence becomes phenotypic expression. Constitutional stability becomes memetic fitness in institutional environments. EMPIRICAL VALIDATION: Argentina CLI equals 0.89, 0 out of 23 reform successes. Chile CLI equals 0.24, 87% reform success. Demonstrates EPT operationalizes North's insights with predictive power.