Institutional Economics

Winner of the Schumpeter Prize, 2000 and Winner of the Smith Prize in Austrian Economics, 2000, this book explores how the limitations of human knowledge create both opportunities and problems in the modern economy. The growing field of evolutionary economics has developed as a result of the traditional failure of the discipline to explain certain phenomena that impact greatly on the economy. These are:*Evolution - the impact on the economy of natural change over time*Institutions - the impact on the economy of government and/or company policy, rules and regulations*Knowledge - the impact on the economy that is felt when new information becomes availableKnowledge, Institutions and Evolution in Economics is a punchy overview of these topics and one that has become regarded as something of a modern classic that no serious social sciences academic or student should be without.

Geoffrey Hodgson's book charts the rise, fall and renewal of institutional economics in the critical, analytical and readable style.

"Allan Gruchy, the elder statesman of the institutionalist school of economic thought, has written a book which is important because it is both insightful and profound. Gruchy seeks to identify and to describe the essential unity of institutionalist economic thought. He finds the essence of institutionalism in the paradigmatic shift away from the old scientific paradigm of orthodox economics, which emphsizes static equilibrium, to the new scientific paradigm of institutionalist economics, which emphasizes dynamic process. . . . Gruchy cal; ls for a reconstruction of economics which is long overdue." Review of Social Economy

This book provides a surprising answer to two puzzling questions that relate to the very "soul" of the professional study of economics in the late twentieth century. How did the discipline of economics come to be dominated by an approach that is heavily dependent on mathematically derived models? And what happened to other approaches to the discipline that were considered to be scientifically viable less than fifty years ago? Between the two world wars there were two well-accepted schools of thought in economics: the "neoclassical," which emerged in the last third of the nineteenth century, and the "institutionalist," which started with the works of Veblen and Commons at the end of the same century. Although the contributions of the institutionalists are nearly forgotten now, Yuval Yonay shows that their legacy lingers in the study and practice of economics today. By reconsidering their impact and by analyzing the conflicts that arose between neoclassicists and institutionalists, Yonay brings to life a hidden chapter in the history of economics.

The author is a sociologist of science who brings a unique perspective to economic history. By utilizing the actor-network approach of Bruno Latour and Michel Callon, he arrives at a deeper understanding of the nature of the changes that took place in the practice of economics. His analysis also illuminates a broader set of issues concerning the nature of scientific practice and the forces behind changes in scientific knowledge.

Radical institutionalism--a processual paradigm focused on changing the direction of cultural evolution and the function of social provisioning in order to promote the full participation of all--defines inequality as evolving from class exploitation, gender domination, race discrimination, and national predation. Radical institutionalism states that inequality is not determined by genetic differences between groups, innate differences between sexes, or class differences. It is believed that mainstream thinking in economics and related studies is not broad enough to capture the complexity of this social pathology.

John R. Commons is one of the most significant figures in the development of American economics. One of the founders of the Institutional school, Commons developed theories of the evolution of capitalism and of institutional change which continue to influence modern economics. These volumes collect, for the first time, his major essays and articles.