The Evolution of Institutional Economics

by Hodgson; Geoffrey M

• ISBN13: 9780415322539
• ISBN10: 0415322537
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2004-04-16
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The story of American Institutional Economics, from its foundations through its supremacy and subsequent decline is an extremely interesting one. Today with the return of Darwinian ideas to social sciences, changes in psychology and a revival of pragmatist philosophy, the intellectual conditions for a revival and reconstruction of American Institutionalism are arguably in place. Few are better qualified to provide an authoritative, wide-ranging account of the rise, fall and potential rebirth of institutional economics than Geoffrey Hodgson. This well-written comprehensive study offers an interpretation of Veblen and American Institutionalism that places Darwinism at the center. In this and other aspects, it challenges prevailing accounts of the nature and potential of American Institutionalism. The author's position as one of the most important economists in the world is becoming cemented by his marvelous history of important books. This book will only add to his status. The book will be readand re-read by academics and students economics, philosophy and sociology.

Author Biography

Geoffrey M. Hodgson is Research Professor in Business Studies at the University of Hertfordshire, UK.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	xiii
Preface	xiv
Acknowledgements	xx
Dramatis personae principes	xxii
PART I Introduction	1	(66)
1 Nature and scope	3	(9)
2 Agency and structure	12	(29)
3 Objections and explanations	41	(26)
PART II Darwinism and the Victorian social sciences	67	(56)
4 Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer and the human species	69	(30)
5 Precursors of emergence and multiple-level evolution	99	(24)
PART III Veblenian institutionalism	123	(160)
6 The beginnings of Veblenian institutionalism	125	(18)
7 The Darwinian mind of Thorstein Veblen	143	(33)
8 Veblen's evolutionary institutionalism	176	(19)
9 The instinct of workmanship and the pecuniary culture	195	(11)
10 A wrong turning: science and the machine process	206	(19)
11 Missed connections: creative synthesis and emergent evolution	225	(23)
12 The launch of institutional economics and the loss of its Veblenian ballast	248	(35)
PART IV Institutionalism into the wilderness	283	(116)
13 John R. Commons and the tangled jungle	285	(24)
14 Wesley Mitchell and the triumph of macroeconomics	309	(13)
15 The maverick institutionalism of Frank Knight	322	(23)
16 The evolution of Clarence Ayres	345	(10)
17 The Ayresian dichotomies: Ayres versus Veblen	355	(24)
18 The decline of institutional economics	379	(20)
PART V Beginning the reconstruction of institutional economics	399	(54)
19 The potential revival of Veblenian institutionalism	401	(18)
20 On individuals and institutions	419	(28)
21 Conclusion and beginning	447	(6)
Bibliography	453	(67)
Index	520