Briviba, Andre 2025 The concept of institutions, often referred to as the "rules of the game", is at the core of political economy. These institutions, whether formal or informal, shape incentives and constraints on human behavior. Institutional change or transforming underlying rules, norms, and structures influences economic, political, and social interactions. Such changes can significantly impact power dynamics, data manipulation, and political participation, ultimately influencing behavior and outcomes in interdependent ways. This dissertation addresses key questions about the effects of institutional changes on strategic behavior in three distinct but interconnected areas: governance, political participation, and academia. The interplay of society or affected groups and institutional change is of interest and allows us to infer conditions under which they result in effective functioning and adaptation. By examining different stages of institutional development—ranging from the creation of new institutions to the merger of existing ones—this thesis offers insights into institutional dynamics and their implications for economic and political outcomes. The first chapter delves into technological innovation of satellites and night light intensity. It demonstrates how institutional structures shape the manipulation of official statistics, showing that economic openness and democracy reduce data manipulation, while decentralization increases it. The second chapter describes the change in political institutions caused by the radical municipality merger in Glarus, Switzerland. The empirical analysis reveals a notable decline in vote participation on the national level. The third and fourth chapters focus on institutional changes in academia, such as the implementation of performance metrics, which significantly alter strategic responses of academics. application/pdf https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/332577 https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/332577/files/phd_Brivibaa.pdf eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.51363/unifr.eth.2025.028 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/urn/urn:nbn:ch:rero-002-123094 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC BY-NC-ND Data manipulation Official statistics Political economy Government Bibliometrics Academia Publication strategy Constitution Federalism Changement organisationnel Changement social Institutions politiques Économie politique Politique et gouvernement Images de télédétection Luminosité Nuit Statistiques Manipulation (psychologie) Participation politique Fusions de communes Universités Sciences Périodiques de recherche Bibliométrie Glaris (Suisse) Pays de langue allemande info:eu-repo/classification/udc/33 Institutional change and strategic responses in governance, political participation, and academia http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06