Economic Information

Department of Economics
North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong

Institutional Economics is proposed to be a two-semester course;
ECO (O) 1014(1) and ECO (O) 1014(2)

The concept of Institutions in the old institutional economics; Adam Smith's "The Theory of the Moral Sentiments."

The pragmatic philosophy of William James, Charles Peirce, John Dewey and Clarence Ayers; formation of habits, the rule of thumb, development of customs traditions and mores as regulators of social conduct; development of legal institutions.

TB Veblen: The Theory of the Leisure Class - informal institutions/habits and traditions, government as part of the established, institutional system (vested interests), proposal of a system of industrial planning by technical experts, Jungian Archetypes and social psychology; R Commons and JK Galbraith - formal (legalized) institutions, Scientific investigation methods; WC Mitchell- Establishment of Institutions, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Statistical basis for study of institutions, New School for Social Research, origins of agent-based theory; G Myrdal - interdependence of social, political, economic and institutional phenomena, modernization ideals.

Religion as an institution: Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Kenneth Boulding: Grants Economics; The three-fold taxonomy of social organization

The concept of institution in the New Institutional Economics: Institutions and organizations. Functions of social and economic institutions.

Interaction situations and the types of norms: prisoners' dilemma-type situation; co-ordination situation; inequality situation. Enforcement characteristics.

Institutional structure of a society. Formal and informal institutions. Sanctions for disobeying norms (self-enforcing sanctions, guilt, shame, informational sanctions, bilateral costly sanctions, multilateral costly sanctions). Conditions of norms' effectiveness.

Interaction of formal and informal institutions. The limits of imitations of institutions from best-performing countries. The problems of their enforceability.

A Comparative view of the Old Institutional Economics and the New Institutional Economics and modern institutionalism.