INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS AS A CATEGORY FOR HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

I have two preliminary points to make. The first concerns the type of category we have in mind. It is perfectly sensible to think of “Institutional Economics” as a candidate for describing, in part, the “reality” of economics. But in so doing, one must remember that terms and their definitions are tools of analysis. Different definitions of Institutional Economics may be used to describe part of the history of economics but doing so only means that we are using the definition as a tool and that our description is driven by the definition we adopt.

Citation

Samuels, W.J. (2004), "INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS AS A CATEGORY FOR HISTORICAL ANALYSIS", Samuels, W.J. (Ed.) A Research Annual (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 22 Part 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 189-192. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0743-4154(03)22010-1