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In 1990, Elinor Ostrom proposed eight design principles, positing them to characterize robust institutions for managing common-pool resources such as forests or fisheries. Since then, many studies have explicitly or implicitly evaluated these design principles. We analyzed 91 such studies to evaluate the principles empirically and to consider what theoretical issues have arisen since their introduction. We found that the principles are well supported empirically and that several important theoretical issues warrant discussion. We provide a reformulation of the design principles, drawing from commonalities found in the studies.