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CHAPTER FIVE - Modern Institutionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2010

Shigeto Tsuru
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Summary

In summarizing the chronological tree of institutional economists, Allan Gruchy wrote:

Although there has been some overlapping of generations of institutionalists, one can discern three well-defined periods in the development of institutional economic thought. The first period is associated with Thorstein Veblen's work, which was done in the years 1890–1925. The second period includes institutionalists such as Wesley C. Mitchell, John R. Commons, and John M. Clark who came after Veblen and worked during the years 1925–1939. The third or current period is that of the present-day institutionalists such as John K. Galbraith, Clarence E. Ayres, and Gunnar Myrdal whose contributions to institutional economics have been made primarily since 1939.

One can immediately see in the above mentioned group of economists that there is nothing like sectarian homogeneity which usually characterizes a particular school of economists. This is perhaps because institutional economists, all of them, emphasize open models in their methodological approach-models which do not exclude any fresh orientation in different directions.

Besides, Veblen, from whom the institutional school is said to have started, was in many ways an eccentric man. Although he displayed flashes of insight which opened the minds of his colleagues and students to new ways of thinking on sundry matters of our society, it was difficult to obtain a systematic picture of his doctrine from his lectures or conversations. Temperamentally he was not eager to have himself understood.

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Institutional Economics Revisited , pp. 71 - 82
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1993

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