Institutional Economics

American tradition treating institutions, law, and habit as the frame economic behavior operates in.

Specifications & Metrics

era

1899 onward

founders

Thorstein Veblen, John R. Commons

signature

Behavior shaped by evolving institutions, law, and habit (1899)

Core Principles & Analysis

• Veblen's conspicuous-consumption critique attacked neoclassical rationality as too thin.
• Commons built the legal-foundations analysis behind American labor and utility law.
• New institutional economics, through Coase, North, and Williamson, carried the questions back into the mainstream.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Institutional economics