The scientific study of social phenomena must, as we would expect with all scientific endeavors, concern itself with the explication, stipulation, and explanation of facts. To apprehend social reality, just as with physical reality, we want to concern ourselves with facts. Economists concern themselves with a plethora of facts and they have devised numerous metrics to render these facts in a measurable form. Economic concepts such as gross domestic product, the capital account deficit, the exchange rate between currencies, and the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) are all considered by economists to be measurable facts that can be assigned a quantitative value. But these facts all have something in common. They are a special form of fact that we may call an “institutional fact.” The economic realm is, as is the social realm, not predominantly concerned with material facts, but with institutional facts.