--- - |2 This article is based on my presidential address delivered in Baltimore at the 2018 annual meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society. In it, I explore the ways in which theories of the middle range help us advance sociology as a social science at a time when many express concern about the fragmentation of the discipline. KEYWORDS: China; economic sociology; institutional change; institutions; market transition theory; stability; stable and punctuated equilibrium. RETRACTION The following article from Sociological Forum, “Middle‐Range Theories of Institutional Change,” by Victor Nee, published online August 28th, in Wiley Online Library http://wileyonlinelibrary.com, has been retracted by agreement between the author, the journal Editor‐in‐Chief Karen Cerulo, and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The article is based on a talk prepared as a Presidential Address. The author agreed to the retraction because two of the figures and some text in the original version did not have the proper permissions. A new version of the article will be published. - 'Sociological Forum, EarlyView. '