Institutional Economics: Social Order and Public Policy (The Locke Institute series) - Hardcover

Kasper, Wolfgang; Streit, Manfred E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1858989418 ISBN 13: 9781858989419

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999

Synopsis

The discipline of institutional economics has gained increasing prominence in recent years, because standard economic explanations can often not come to grips with major contemporary policy issues, such as economic reform in affluent, but dysfunctional economies, the transformation of the failed socialist command economies and the governance problems of the new industrial economies. Institutional economists point out that rule systems matter greatly to explaining these problems and that institutional innovation is central to finding sustained solutions. Institutions must underpin increasingly complex webs of human interaction because interaction and coordination depend on tenuous links of trust.

This major book provides an accessible introduction to the burgeoning discipline of institutional economics, and to the central issues of private property rights and their competitive use. The book develops the issue from fundamental premises about human cognition and motivation. It includes policy-oriented discussions of:

- the logical basis of institutions and why institutions matter - the institutional arrangements underpinning domestic markets and international exchange where human action is coordinated by private choice - the institutional arrangements underpinning business organizations - the functions of government and the relative merits of private and public choice, as well as solutions to controlling the opportunistic use of political power - possible reforms in heavily regulated mature economies that have to meet the challenge from new competitors - the reasons for the collapse of the socialist institutional system - the influence of globalization on institutional development during the modernization process in third-world countries

About this title

About the Author

Wolfgang Kasper, Professor of Economics, University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia

Review

'A solid and much needed book, that is comprehensive in coverage, elementary in exposition, and relevant in applications. Modern Institutional Economics has, indeed "come of age" when its central elements can be so coherently packaged. It now becomes possible to point inquiring potential readers to this book rather than to a whole subliterature.' -- James M. Buchanan, Center for Study of Public Choice, George Mason University

'Institutional economics has risen as a sort of sub-field in economics without most economists knowing - or at least agreeing as to - what it entails. At last, we have a clear and comprehensive text that defines and explicates this new "hot subject".' -- Dennis C. Mueller, Universitt Wien, Austria

'The new institutionalism is a great improvement over the old. This book is a very well designed elementary text in the field that could be used in undergraduate courses, and in fact, any economist who is not up to the latest development in this area would find it worthwhile reading.' -- Gordon Tullock, University of Arizona

Edition details

• Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1858989418
• ISBN 13: 9781858989419
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 544