There is a growing consensus within both policy and academic circles, including various schools of political, legal, and economic thought, that institutions matter and that the quality of institutions and governments makes an important difference for economic development. However, while the institutional literature has extensively discussed different types of institutions and their importance, only a few quantitative measures of formal institutions and their quality are available. What is more, most analyses referring to the quality of public institutions concern the national or regional level and the issue at the local level is relatively understudied.

The purpose of the article is to fill this gap in two ways. The first one is to identify territorial differentiation of the quality of public institutions at the local level in Poland; the second one, to explain the reasons of the differentiation of institutional capacities in the context of historical, cultural, and social factors.

The research has shown that the quality of public institutions is highly related to historical circumstances. However, although their impact is strong, the historical conditions are definitely not the only factor influencing local institutional capital in Poland, as they appear to be deeply affected also by the level of urbanization and the degree of human capital.

在政策界和学术界，包括政治、法律和经济思想的各个流派，越来越多的共识认为机构很重要，机构和政府的质量对经济发展有着重要影响。然而，虽然机构文献广泛讨论了不同类型的机构及其重要性，但只有少数正式机构及其质量的量化指标可用。此外，大多数涉及公共机构质量的分析都涉及国家或地区层面，而对地方层面的问题研究相对较少。

本文的目的是通过两种方式填补这一空白。第一个是确定波兰地方一级公共机构质量的地域差异；第二，在历史、文化和社会因素的背景下解释制度能力分化的原因。

研究表明，公共机构的质量与历史环境高度相关。然而，虽然它们的影响很大，但历史条件绝对不是影响波兰地方制度资本的唯一因素，因为它们似乎也深受城市化水平和人力资本程度的影响。