The Foundations Of Institutional Economics

K. William Kapp was one of the leading 20 th century institutionalists and a founding member of the Association for Evolutionary Economics. This book was developed by Kapp and is his attempt to present the foundations of institutional economics though has remained unfinished and unpublished during the last 30 years since his death. Carefully edited with additional material from some of Kapp' s other major works and with a full introduction from Sebasitan Berger and Rolf Steppacher, this book represents a major reappraisal of Kapp' s contribution ...

This is a ground-breaking book about the foundations of institutional economics. K. William Kapp presents the economic role of institutions for economic development, capital formation and technological dynamics in an easily accessible and comprehensive manner. As a front-rank 20th century institutional economist, Kapp pulls together arguments from a variety of sources, including Thorstein Veblen, John Kenneth Galbraith and Gunnar Myrdal, all of which emphasize the crucial role of institutions. The author cements institutional economics as a distinct and coherent framework of analysis to effectively address urgent socio-economic problems, such as environmental disruption and sustainable development. This book begins with a critique of conventional (neoclassical) economics and an overview of the antecedents of institutional economics. The core of the book is formed by the chapters on institutions, human economic behavior and needs, arguing that institutional change is key to directing economic development towards sustainable and adequate living conditions, rather than merely formal growth formulas. The final chapters provide the reader with the institutional theories of capital and technology, showing how capital formation and technological dynamics are determined by institutions, such as the principle of investment for profit. The appendix complements Kapp’s plea for institutional change with articles on science and technology, social costs, substantive economics, and circular and cumulative causation. This book is suited for readers at all levels who are interested in institutional economics, the history of economics thought, political economics as well as ecological and heterodox economics. Researchers and students will find it to be an easily accessible and a concise elaboration on the foundations of institutional economics.

Generic institutionalism offers a new perspective on institutional economic change within an evolutionary framework. The institutional landscape shapes the social fabric and economic organization in manifold ways. The book elaborates on the ubiquity of such institutional forms with regards to their emergence, durability and exit in social agency-structure relations. Thereby institutions are considered as social learning environments changing the knowledge base of the economy along generic rule-sets in non-nomological ways from within. Specific attention is given to a theoretical structuring of the topic in ontology, heuristics and methodology. Part I introduces a generic naturalistic ontology by comparing prevalent ontological claims in evolutionary economics and preparing them for a broader pluralist and interdisciplinary discourse. Part II reconsiders these ontological claims and confronts it with prevalent heuristics, conceptualizations and projections of institutional change. In this respect the book revisits the institutional economic thought of Thorstein Veblen, Friedrich August von Hayek, Joseph Alois Schumpeter and Pierre Bourdieu. A synthesis is suggested in an application of the generic rule-based approach. Part III discusses the implementation of rule-based bottom-up models of institutional change and provides a basic prototype agent-based computational simulation. The evolution of power relations plays an important role in the programming of real-life communication networks. This notion characterizes the discussed policy realms (Part IV) of ecological and financial sustainability as tremendously complex areas of institutional change in political economy, leading to the concluding topic of democracy in practice. The novelty of this approach is given by its modular theoretical structure. It turns out that institutional change is carried substantially by affective social orders in contrast to rational orders as communicated in orthodox economic realms. The characteristics of affective orders are derived theoretically from intersections between ontology and heuristics, where interdependencies between instinct, cognition, rationality, reason, social practice, habit, routine or disposition are essential for the embodiment of knowledge. This kind of research indicates new generic directions to study social learning in particular and institutional evolution in general.

A systemic account of how institutions shape economic development Institutions matter for economic development. Yet despite this accepted wisdom, new institutional economics (NIE) has yet to provide a comprehensive look at what constitutes the institutional foundation of economic development (IFED). Bringing together findings from a range a fields, from development economics and development studies to political science and sociology, The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development explores the precise mechanisms through which institutions affect growth. Shiping Tang contends that institutions shape economic development through four “Big Things”: possibility, incentive, capability, and opportunity. From this perspective, IFED has six major dimensions: political hierarchy, property rights, social mobility, redistribution, innovation protection, and equal opportunity. Tang further argues that IFED is only one pillar within the New Development Triangle (NDT): sustained economic development also requires strong state capacity and sound socioeconomic policies. Arguing for an evolutionary approach tied to a country’s stage of development, The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development advances an understanding of institutions and economic development through a holistic, interdisciplinary lens.

As today’s world develops and evolves, so does its economics. New economic approaches have begun to emerge, but traditional methods are still being implemented. As both systems provide different solutions to society’s economic issues, thoughtful research and analysis is required regarding the tactics and strategies that both theories utilize. Comparative Approaches to Old and New Institutional Economics is an essential reference source that discusses the sequential history of these two economic theories as well as their application to global fiscal disputes. Featuring research on topics such as international relations, business management, and institutionalism, this book is ideally designed for economists, analysts, managers, researchers, practitioners, academicians, and students seeking coverage on the parallel methods of these economic philosophies.

Institutional economics has been a major part of economic thought for the whole of the twentieth century, and today remains crucial to an understanding of the development of heterodox economics. The two principal publications that founded the school were Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class and Commons's A Sociological View of Sovereignty, both published in 1899. As a tribute to these two seminal works, Warren Samuels has assembled an exceptionally prestigious international group of scholars to produce this landmark volume celebrating the centenary. The chapters assess the work of Veblen and Commons and their influence on the school of institutional economics from a variety of theoretical perspectives. The contributions on Veblen appraise his anthropological analysis of consumption habits of American households from sociological, linguistic and feminist points of view. Conversely, the essays on Commons's work focus on the concepts of property, power and the relationship between legality and economics.

A presentation of contributions from some of the world's leading economists, including Ronald Coase and Douglass North. It demonstrates the extent and depth of the New Institutional Economics research programme with special emphasis on the interaction between institutional factors.

This publication examines issues of water sector reform and performance from the perspectives of institutional economics and political economic studies. The authors develop an alternative quantitative assessment methodology based on the principle of 'institutional ecology', as well as data collected from 127 water experts from 43 countries and regions around the world using a cross-country review of recent water sector reforms within an institutional transaction cost framework.

The new institutional economics offers one of the most exciting research agendas in economics today. The book looks at the differences and similarities between the three main approaches.

The contributors to this volume focus on the political and value issues that, in their shared view, underlie the global environmental crisis facing us today. They argue that only by transforming our dominant values, social institutions and way of living can we avoid ecological disaster.