This paper is an attempt to present the multidisciplinary nature of the research of local and regional development processes, with a special emphasis on institutional economics. Regional science, regional studies or urban economics are fields of social sciences which refer to the economic dimension of human decisions, concerning the location patterns of industrial activities, places for living, visiting, as well as the impact of political decisions on spatial structures. Since decisions of this kind always appear in territorially specific legal, social, relational or cultural – in other words institutional – conditions, it opens a possible way for linking regional science and institutionalism together. However, one of the biggest challenges for the institutional economics lays in using its theoretical framework for empirical analyses, which occur to be particularly difficult in relation to research on local and regional level. Analysis of two highly recognizable indices measuring some institutional factors supporting economic activities – Doing Business and Human Development Index – show that they can also be applied on sub-national level.