ABSTRACT

This chapter shows that the shuttle business in Briksdal is the result of individual and collective choices and actions undertaken as an interaction between formal and informal rules, the biophysical/material world and characteristics of the community. In the late 1950s, the community was connected to the regional transport infrastructure by a 30-kilometre road that ran from the center of Olden to the end of the lake in Oldedalen. The chapter demonstrates how one community, the Oldedalen community, was able to benefit economically from the growing tourism in Western Norway. Within economic disciplines, the importance of institutions for economic development were long-neglected and disregarded as independent variables. The public right of access is a highly important institutional framework for the rise of walking tourism in Norway. Institutions and institutional change create structures for various forms of exchange which again has direct impact on transformation – and transaction costs.