The Review of Economics and Institutions is the New Series of Economia, Società e Istituzioni, edited by Luiss University Press up to 2005. The New Series is published by the University of Perugia maintaining the founders' idea that political economy scholars should aim at understanding social and economic issues in their concreteness and completeness, in their historical perspective and within their institutional framework. The nature and scope of the Review remain general. Although submissions of high-quality theoretical articles will be considered, a privileged attention will be paid to applied contributions. A distinctive feature of the New Series is that it offers authors the possibility to have their papers accepted in less than three months; specifically, it is conceived for attracting high quality works of young economists at their earlier phase of research activity. This First Issue of the New Series is a collection of invited works by international leading scholars; these articles provide clear examples of the fields of research and the quality standards the Review aims at attaining.